


I'll Take You in Pieces

by Greenflares



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Domestic Avengers, Drunkenness, Flashbacks, M/M, Pining, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-02-11 20:14:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2081661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenflares/pseuds/Greenflares
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After chasing Bucky around the globe for months on end without any success, Steve reluctantly returns and buys a house in New York. In between picking the perfect shade of paint for the bathroom and watching Clint break half the shingles on his roof, he has faith that Bucky will eventually come home to him.</p>
<p>After all, Bucky had always told him to be patient.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just quickly: This isn't a WIP. I've finished the entire thing (40k in all) and it will be posted quickly as I run through it looking for final adjustments.
> 
> In terms of canon, this is very much a post-Winter Soldier fic that's Bucky/Steve centric, but the Avengers are also present. I've basically ignored the ending of Iron Man 3 to make things easier. Nothing major.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it, because holy shit I loved this so much. Hit me up if you find any mistakes!
> 
> The title comes from The XX's [Basic Space](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHZVGqqf3gg) and inspiration was drawn from [this](http://greenflares.tumblr.com/post/93642787226/hes-used-to-this-chain-of-command-and-since) and [this](http://greenflares.tumblr.com/post/94046869971).

“So,” Sam said as he carried Steve’s kitchen mixer into the new place, “two bedrooms, huh?”

“Please be careful with that,” he begged, directing him with a wave through the hall to the kitchen, past the two doors that led into the bedrooms, “it was a gift from Bruce.”

Sam wasn’t easily distracted. “What does a bachelor like you need two bedrooms for?” he wheedled, holding the mixer with a pointedly delicate grip.

Steve swallowed around Bucky’s name in his throat.

“I was thinking about turning it into a home gym,” he said instead, “since I figure my membership at the S.H.I.E.L.D. gym facility is kind of useless now.”

Sam looked at him with sad eyes, having somehow heard what he hadn’t said. “Yeah, yeah,” he sighed, allowing Steve his lie. “Anyway, I think this is a good idea. A new house is a new start, man. It can help you move on with your life.

He glowered at him. “I’m fine with my life how it is.” He was getting tired of defending his choices to the people who kept insisting he _move on_.

“This is just my opinion, Cap, so – y’know – take from it what you will,” Sam began placatingly, “but I think you’ve been trapped in the past lately.”

He fought the overwhelming desire to roll his eyes. “Hilarious, yet another Steve-was-frozen-for-seventy-years-and-is-always-going-to-be-out-of-the-times joke. Tony’s going to love you.”

“Of course he is,” Sam agreed with a smug grin, “but that’s not what I mean.”

“Help me understand, then.”

They entered the bare kitchen and came to a halt. Sam turned to face him, the mixer a heavy blot between them.

“I think you’d be happier if you moved on with your life,” he said, like it was just that easy, like Steve was being purposely obstinate for being unable to forget about his best friend who had miraculously returned from the dead. “I don’t mean giving up on finding Barnes, either. I mean – keep living while he’s gone. Keep on keepin’ on, despite it all.” He paused, readjusted his grip on the mixer, and added, “Don’t give up on living your life just so you can obsess over the guy. You know that’s not what he’d want.”

“He’d do it for me. If our positions were reversed, if I—”

“Maybe,” Sam agreed, cutting him off before they could get into the same back and forth argument they’d been having for the past few months, and at Steve’s expression he hastily amended, “probably, I don’t know, I haven’t met the guy outside of him trying to kill me.” He sat the mixer down on the kitchen counter by the power outlet and angled it until it was straight. “This okay?”

“Perfect,” Steve murmured, “thanks. But also – screw you, pal.”

Sam raised his bare palms in a gesture of mediation. “Okay, now I’m sensing some hostility.”

Steve ran a hand through his hair and paced the length of the kitchen twice before he allowed himself to speak.

“I should be out there looking for him,” he said, giving voice to the thoughts that had been eating at him since he touched down on American soil a month earlier, “I should be back in Russia, or – or Bangladesh, or – in Utah, I don’t know.”

“We’ve looked,” Sam reminded him, “we’ve been looking for two months. We’ve already been to Russia and Bangladesh; not Utah, no, but Steve, if there’d been a sign of him there we’d have been on the first goddamn flight and you know that.”

“I should still be looking.” He should have looked for him after he fell back in ’45, but he didn’t. He’d left him for dead and now he owed this to him. He had to find him this time.

“You need to rest up for a while,” Sam told him in a docile voice Steve might have used with a child. “You can’t be looking for him all the time.” He reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder, his touch rough and warm. “Even Captain America needs a break sometimes, brother.”

He could recognise the truth in what he said – believed it, even – but it didn’t help the guilt lessen. “Still feels like a betrayal,” he muttered, and Sam sighed again.

“I know, I know,” he said, “but hey, just for today, how about you don’t think about that? Let’s just – today let’s just get your stuff in the house, yeah?”

He pursed his lips but forced a nod. He could do it for a day.

“Come on, then,” Sam said, measuring his expression carefully, “let’s get your couch in here. It’s gonna take some deft hands to get it through these doorframes unscathed.”

 

~*~

 

Steve was pretty well-versed on the argument that he should Just Move On, since he’d been getting it from practically everyone he knew. The calls had started from the moment he booked his flight to Moscow.

“He won’t be at the airport to welcome you with open arms, you know,” Natasha had said, all dry and exasperated and bitter, like he was doing it just to frustrate her personally. “Steve, you have to know better than this. Give it _time_.”

Tony’s calls had started when Steve and Sam arrived at the airport for check-in. He blustered and stammered and threatened to have him grounded and permanently added to the no-fly list. Steve sighed and listened to his threats, only half-worried that he’d go through with them, before Pepper managed to talk him into handing her the phone. She then proceeded to berate Steve herself, asking him just what he thought he was doing, and had he lost his _goddamn mind? Do you_ want _to get yourself killed by an amnesiac assassin with a metal arm? Because that’s what it looks like, Steve!_

Bruce and Clint had sent him a combined 83 text messages which ranged from the polite _(Please, Steve. I really don’t think this is a good idea and none of us want to see you get hurt. Please come home.)_ to the vaguely insulting _(are you fucking insane rogers??? wtf??? if you die i call dibs on your shit xoxo)._

At the end of the day, despite their best intentions, Steve knew that he had to go. They didn’t understand – couldn’t possibly understand – but Steve _had to go_.

“It’s Bucky,” he said time and time again to all of them. It was the only way he could get them to pause – it was the tremor in his voice, the rush of his words. “I have to,” he’d say. “It’s _Bucky._ ”

 

~*~

 

He’d bought the house after returning from Bangladesh empty-handed.

It was a no-brainer, really. His old apartment was ruined, what with the bloodstains and the bullet holes and the illegal surveillance equipment littered throughout, and Washington didn’t hold anything for him anymore now that S.H.I.E.L.D. was dismantled and he was left unemployed. He’d wanted to return to New York from the moment he took the job in DC, and the house had been cheap – for New York, at least – and sturdier than most. It was a relic of older times.

The place had both a front and backyard, each just a small patch of spotty, ragged lawn that needed tending to. Inside the walls were peeling with faded wallpaper, stuff that looked older than even Steve was, and the entire building seemed to settle and breathe like a real, living entity. It was perfect. It was everything his S.H.I.E.L.D. provided apartment hadn’t been.

He figured it was good to have something that was completely his own outside of the organisation. The keys to his old apartment had been handed to him by an agent, someone who had been tasked with the job of reintegrating Good Ol’ Captain America into the 21st century, and he’d accepted them blindly, nodding and smiling and thanking them all the while.

This house, though – this old, ancient house had been his choice. He’d found it on his own and paid for it with his savings. It was his in a way nothing had been since he’d woken up and been told he’d lost decades of his life to the ice.

Sam had moved too, which Steve was anxious about. They were friends, yes, but Sam had only known him for a handful of months and to uproot his life and move to a new state simply because Steve had was enough to make him fret.

“Don’t get all mopey and think I’m moving because of you,” he’d said as they packed boxes in the moving van, “I’ve wanted to get out of DC for years, man. It’s too _clean_ here, you ever notice?”

He worried that he’d made a mess of Sam’s life, that he’d come along and interrupted everything, that he’d cost him his house and his job and his familiar city, but at the same time he was selfishly grateful. He wasn’t sure he had the strength to survive leaving another friend behind.

 

~*~

 

He was digging weeds out of cracks in the garden path when Natasha appeared, the heels of her boots sinking in the damp lawn and her sunglasses glinting as she looked down at him.

“Well, this is weird,” she said.

“Me gardening?”

“You staying still for longer than twenty seconds at a time,” she answered. “But yeah, also the gardening.”

He sighed and sat back on his heels, dropping the trowel and dusting his hands on his jeans, leaving dusty smears over the denim.

Natasha cocked her hip and looked out across the street, surveying the houses and the cars. She almost looked casual, but Steve knew her well enough to recognise the way she scouted an area. She was finding exits, finding vantage points, scanning for threats and possibilities. He’d done it too.

“Nice neighbourhood,” she said eventually, satisfied by what she’d seen. “I bet the neighbours have two kids and a dog and they throw barbeques on Saturdays, huh?”

He squinted at her. “Two women on the right and an old man on the left, actually,” he said. “Pet status is as yet unknown.”

She snorted, almost laughing.

He took the chance to stand up and revelled in the way his back and shoulders twanged with the movement. He’d started work on the front yard just after breakfast and he’d already managed to clear over half of the weeds from the cracked path. He was beginning to realise that it would probably have been smarter to dig the entire path out and replace it with new pavers, but pulling weeds was therapeutic in a way he’d never have thought possible. The monotony was soothing.

“You know,” Natasha groused, pushing her sunglasses up into her hair and meeting his eyes squarely, “when we kept telling you to stop chasing, I never really thought you’d listen.”

“You never thought I’d listen and yet you never stopped telling me,” he sighed, “how considerate of you.”

She folded her arms and tilted her head as she studied him carefully. “So,” she said after a beat, “what gives?”

He frowned before he could prevent it. “I needed a place to live that wasn’t a crime scene,” he told her, confused as to how people kept forgetting that Fury had been _shot_ in his living room. “Plus,” he added, “my neighbour turned out to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent under orders to spy on me, which made passing each other in the hall just a _little_ awkward.”

She levelled him with a stare. “Steve.”

He clenched his jaw and met her stare evenly.

“Haven’t I proven myself to you?” she asked. “Can’t you trust me with this?”

He remembered the way she’d looked when they first met Bucky on the bridge. He’d been firing round after round right at them, her eyes had been glassy and wide, and for the first time Steve had looked at her and seen her fear.

He wet his lips and sighed. “I’m trying a new tactic.”

“You’re trying to draw him out. Trying to make him come to you.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “If you already had that figured out, why bother asking me in the first place?”

She shrugged and adjusted her sleeve, smoothing it under a palm. “I like knowing I’m right.”

He huffed a breath and stared impatiently at her.

“You really think he’ll come?” she asked, and although her voice was soft like cotton bandages, her words still made him flinch. “What makes you so sure he’ll follow you?”

He hadn’t really given much thought to it. “I don’t know,” he said. “I have to trust him.”

She sighed in the way that made Steve want to grit his teeth. “You’re crazy,” she said, “but I like it when you’re being crazy _here_.” She pushed a hand forward and grazed her fingers against his wrist, smiling at him, small and sad. “We worry.”

“I know you do. My voicemail inbox is _still_ clogged from all those messages.”

“Yeah, well, just be thankful Stark didn’t fly out to Russia in the suit to come get you – because he was going to, Steve. Seriously.”

He shut his eyes and groaned, the mental image of Tony flying alongside the plane and tapping petulantly at his window playing at the front of his mind.

“He had one foot off the roof before Pepper showed up and dragged him back inside, thank _god_.”

“I’m sorry I worried you all,” he said, not for the first time, “but I’m not sorry I went. I had to try.”

“I know,” she said. “We know.”

They stood there, the afternoon sun burning his shoulders and neck. There was dirt under his fingernails and grass stains on the knees of his jeans. Natasha’s hair swayed in the breeze. It was so deceivingly normal.

“It’s not a bad place, you know,” she said quietly, drawing him back into reality. She was looking at the house with a hand over her brow to shield her eyes from the harsh sun. “It’s very you.”

He smiled. “Thanks.”

“Come on, then,” she sighed, and she started towards the porch, “I want the grand tour.”

 

~*~

 

Steve remembered when he was nineteen and still all skin and bones.

“Look,” he said, cutting Bucky short, throwing his hand up and pointing through the window at the dark blot of fur out in the yard. “I told you, didn’t I?” He looked at his friend, grinning, and nudged him in the ribs with an elbow. “Told you there was a cat.”

The cat was curled in the yard, a small bundle in the early afternoon sun. He wondered if it had a home. He wondered if it was being fed.

“Yeah, and I told you not to be a damned idiot about it,” Bucky replied, the words falling from him with quiet resignation. “You know you get sick when you’re around cats.”

That much was true. His eyes itched, his nose ran, and for hours he’d sneeze until his lungs hurt and his ribs ached. But still, he had a soft spot for them – especially strays. He worried about them.

“Doesn’t matter to me,” he said, which was also true.

Bucky only snorted and hit his pack of cigarettes against the heel of his hand, shaking one cigarette free. “Let’s see if you still say that after you’re all red in the face and you can’t stop sneezin’, huh?” He pinched the smoke between his lips and said, voice muffled, “You’re a real idiot if you chase that thing.”

“I just want to see if it’s okay.” He was already at the door.

“That cat’s _fine_ ,” Bucky whined, though he followed dutifully after him, lighting his cigarette and drawing hot breath. “It’s only sleeping – like _you_ oughta be.”

Steve tossed a petulant look back at him. “It’s not even noon, Buck,” he reminded him. “I don’t need to sleep.” He started down the landing towards the yard and the cat.

“You’re getting over the damn flu, if you care to recall,” Bucky called to him from the landing by Steve’s front door. He was leaning with his hip against the railing, his hair a mess and his shirt untucked. He looked harried and tired, like he’d spent the better part of a week watching after Steve – which was accurate. “You shouldn’t even be outta bed yet.”

He headed over to the cat and flipped Bucky the bird as he did, just for good measure. Bucky laughed at that, the sound all soft and warm, and Steve smiled to himself as he walked. There was always a tight, breathless sensation to be found in making Bucky laugh.

“Hey, puss,” he murmured, crouching a little when he was a few feet from the cat. He held out a hand and rubbed his fingers together enticingly.

Instantly the cat startled. Its head snapped up to stare at him and it was all wide eyes and bushy tail, its fur entirely on end. It looked ready to jump or hiss or claw him.

“Hey,” he tried, softer now, but the cat scrambled to its feet and dashed away, headed for the bushes to the side of the neighbouring house, its tail streaming out behind it like a thick, bushy rope.

“You went about that all the wrong way,” Bucky said sagely at Steve’s return. He let out a breath of warm smoke that clouded around him and clung to his skin like perfume. “You don’t just charge up to a cat like that.” He flicked ash on the porch railing with a nonchalance that would have driven Steve’s mother wild.

“You’re the expert on cats now, are you?”

“Seems like,” he agreed, smirking infuriatingly at him. “Know more about ‘em than you, anyhow.”

Steve looked over at the place the cat had disappeared to. “I didn’t mean to scare it like I did,” he said. “I just wanted to check and see if it’s alright.”

Bucky stubbed his cigarette butt out on the railings, leaving dark smudges against the peeling paint, before he flicked it aside. “The trick with these things is patience,” he said confidently. “You gotta go slow. You gotta be careful.”

“Nah,” Steve sighed, “I’m just gonna leave it. It’s not in any trouble, considering how fast the thing is.” He let out a breath. He couldn’t help but feel disappointed – not only at the way things had turned out, but at himself for being so stupid in the first place.

Bucky looked at him then, measuring him carefully – he took in the circles around his eyes and the gaunt lines of his bones. Steve squirmed under the inspection, his ears heating and his throat growing tight. He always struggled to meet Bucky’s eye when he was being looked at so thoroughly. He couldn’t help but worry that Bucky might see through everything and find the core of him and all his secrets, the ones he kept locked deep inside.

“I can teach you,” he said eventually in a voice much softer than Steve was expecting. “We can draw it in, if you like. Make sure it’s okay. I can do that.”

Steve frowned a little. “I don’t think it’s going to come back.”

“You might be right,” Bucky allowed, shrugging with one shoulder, “but we gotta try, huh? Gotta have faith.”

Bucky started leaving things out at night – small things, like leftover scraps or the bony bits of fish that neither of them liked. He left them by the door on the porch, just sitting there, and by morning they were always gone. Steve had his doubts that it was that one particular cat that was eating them – after all, there were plenty of strays in the neighbourhood – but Bucky seemed sure of it.

Steve woke one morning and Bucky was gone, the couch cushions just strewn with his blankets, a crust of bread on a plate by the table. It was still early though, too early for him to have left for his job at the docks.

“Buck?” he called, and he felt fear under his tongue, felt it shake in his fingers.

“Out here,” came the quiet reply from the front door, and Steve felt a flood of relief.

“What the hell are you doing,” he started, opening the door, “it’s cold as—”

Bucky was on the stairs on the porch smoking and the cat was sitting perched beside him, pressed against his leg like it belonged there. Bucky beamed up at Steve, beamed like nothing he’d ever seen before.

“Told you,” he said, scratching the little thing under the chin, “it’s all about patience. You have to wait for them to come to you… else you might scare them away.”

“Think it’ll come inside?” Steve asked, already feeling the chill in the air eating into his skin, his bones, dampening his lungs.

“Probably,” Bucky said. He glanced up at him. “Why? You wanna keep the mongrel?”

“Hey,” he scolded, “it’s not a mongrel. It’s just – a little worse for wear, that’s all.” The cat looked half-starved and its fur was a mess, but he knew he was right.

Bucky sighed and shook his head with that same fond exasperation Steve knew so well. “I swear, Steve,” he muttered, “you’re the softest fella I’ve ever met.”

Despite it all, Bucky gently scooped the cat into his arms before he stood, crunching his cigarette under his boot as he did, and carried the little thing inside.

 

~*~

 

His furniture had become a bulky sheet-covered maze, each piece hidden under old linen that he’d sourced for the task. As he covered each piece he was reminded of Halloween, of dressing as a ghost under a bed sheet, of cutting holes in the fabric for the eyes and being sent to his room without any dinner for ruining his ma’s spare linen.

Peeling wallpaper was therapeutic. The strips that came off smoothly in one long, perfect, continuous piece were the best, but he liked the stubborn strips, too – the pieces that broke and got stuck, that required him to dig with his fingernails or use the scraper he’d bought specially for the task. He could have used a steamer – it would’ve made things easier – but he didn’t. It felt good to work with his hands and to see the cause and effect of his actions in real time.

He’d been thinking about fixing up the yards. He’d always wanted to grow a garden; he’d always thought there was something pure about growing your own fruit and vegetables. Bucky’s mother had done it, back when they were kids. She’d always sent Bucky over what little she could spare – tomatoes, apples, berries – and Steve’s ma had always gotten tearful, then.

Steve wondered if Bucky would come.

He felt doubt creeping at him, nagging at his resolution. Bucky could be anywhere – Taiwan, Paris, Rome – and Steve was wasting his time with _wallpaper_ —

_No_ , he thought, ripping a strip of paper off the wall in one piece, _have faith. He’ll come._

 

~*~

 

Sam took a long pull from his bottle and licked his lips, surveying the room with careful neutrality.

“You know you could hire people to do this for you, right? You could’ve bought a mansion, man. You didn’t need to buy a fixer-upper – not with your paycheque.”

“I like fixing the place up,” he told him, “and besides, I’m not getting a paycheque anymore. I’m budgeting.”

Sam snorted and rubbed at his nose, snickering into his hand. “You have – what, one hundred years? – of military back-pay in your account. You don’t need to _budget_ , brother – you need to _splurge_.”

It was strange but the thought of having money, of not just _having_ money but having an _excessive amount of it,_ was still foreign to him in the way that cell phones and space travel had once been. He’d been able to shake free of the old ways in most things, had adapted to Tony’s technological gadgets and the internet quickly enough, but there was always the nagging thought at the back of his mind that he had to be careful about money. He had to budget himself, he had to make sure he had enough to eat that week – enough that Bucky wouldn’t have to work a double shift at the docks or go scrounging for a job in the factories—

“—was picked up by some of Stark’s facial recognition stuff – the real creepy Big Brother kind of thing, that _1984_ stuff – but we can’t know for sure yet—”

Steve stopped him with a frown and a raised hand. “Wait,” he said, voice thick and heavy with confusion, his gut reeling with the sudden rise of hope, “wait, go back, tell me that again? I – I wasn’t listening at the start, sorry.”

Sam offered him a withering look of amusement. “I _said_ ,” he restarted, “that Stark’s facial recognition software picked your boy Barnes out of some surveillance footage from an airport in DC. He was getting into a cab at the rank out front.”

Steve’s ears rang sharply with white noise.

“We can’t be sure, though,” Sam added, a disclaimer meant to keep Steve’s hopes down and prevent him from working himself into the same overzealous mess they’d all dealt with over the past few months. “There are a million people out there who could look like him, for all we know. Could be a fluke.”

“No one’s like him,” he said, “he’s – it’s him.” He fought the urge to pump a fist in the air or to crush Sam in a hug. He grinned instead, grinned so hard he thought his teeth might shatter from the pressure.

Sam watched him, smiling too. “Yeah, yeah, I know you think it’s him,” he said after a while, “and it probably is, but I’m just being real careful here, not getting my hopes up or anything, just in case.”

“Don’t worry,” Steve breathed, “don’t worry about it.”

 

~*~

 

He was in the hardware store, his hand on his hip as he stared out at the multitude of paint swatches that lined the wall opposite him.

“I’m thinking yellow,” he said, his phone cradled between his shoulder and ear as he reached out and picked out a strip of yellow tones. He turned it over in his hand. “There’s one here that’s called _Dandelion._ ”

“It sounds repulsive,” Natasha told him.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say _repulsive_ , but – maybe just a little kitsch?” Pepper interjected, her voice a little tinnier from the spotty reception on the Stark jet. “Yellow’s nice in small doses, don’t get me wrong,” she continued, “but for an entire room?”

“What room’s this for, again?” Natasha asked. “The hallway?”

He slid the yellow strip back amongst the rest of the yellow tones. “The main bathroom,” he said. “The one with the, uh, the shimmery tiles I’m keeping.”

“Mother of pearl tiles,” Natasha corrected him for Pepper’s benefit. “It’s actually a lovely bathroom – really large – a claw-foot tub – the works.”

“Maybe a cooler colour then, Steve,” Pepper suggested. “Yellow’s a bit overwhelming with pearl. Maybe try a pink-grey? Or – oh! How about a muted pastel grey on its own!”

Natasha disagreed, “I’m worried that’ll wash the room out. It still needs _some_ colour, just not _Dandelion_ levels of colour.”

“Wait,” Steve interrupted, switching the call to loud speaker so he could read the text he’d just received, “Clint just replied. He thinks a soft moss green would go best against the tub and the basin.”

“ _Moss green?_ ” Pepper squawked, her voice loud in the aisle as it crackled from the phone. “Is he _insane?_ ”

“You tell Clint from me that he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about,” Natasha declared, drawing horrified glares from an elderly couple at the other end of the aisle. “M _oss green_ my _ass—_ ”

 

~*~

 

Tony came by with a thermos of coffee – _“The best in New York, trust me.”_ – and Steve showed him through the house and pointed out the areas he’d been working on and the things he planned on changing. He’d stripped all the wallpaper already, though there were still spots that needed to be scrubbed clean before he could paint over them, and he’d been busy fixing uneven planks in the floorboards.

“So this is the famous _Sea Foam Mist_ I’ve heard so much from Pepper about,” he said when they toured the freshly painted bathroom. It had taken Steve, Natasha and Pepper fifteen minutes of careful deliberation to decide on a colour.

He gazed at the walls. “It’s blue.”

“ _Sea Foam Mist_ sounds far more exotic.” He took a loud sip of his coffee from one of the mugs Steve was certain Tony himself had given him for the old apartment. It featured a large photo of Steve in his uniform, one of the shots S.H.I.E.L.D. had released for PR after the New York incident. Steve tried to keep it at the back of his cupboard behind the other modest cups. “You’re really gonna fix this place up, then? Give the entire house the old spit and shine?”

“Yep,” he said, leading the way back to the kitchen and taking a seat at the table, “I’m gonna do the entire place up. I’ve been thinking about getting new shingles for the roof… maybe fixing up the chimney.”

Tony craned his neck up at the ceiling as though by some miracle he might be able to see what was on the rooftop from where he sat. “Please, for the love of god, hire a professional for roof related handiwork.”

“I’m not going to pay someone to do something I can do on my own,” he told him, realising as he said it that Tony probably had no concept of what it was like to live on a budget.

“Well, I guess you’d survive the fall if you rolled off the guttering and fell into the rose bushes,” he contemplated. “I guess I just don’t like the idea of you wielding a hammer. I’ve seen what Thor can do with one.”

“You’re welcome to come and lend a hand if you’re so concerned,” he said with overt-sweetness.

“Y’know,” Tony said, “I was worried about you for a while there, back when you were all gung-ho about tracking down Barnes and – and flying to Russia without any warning, but hey, I gotta give it to you,” he said, floundering a hand at Steve, “you’re doing well. You didn’t die or maim yourself in any way, and it looks like being a homeowner suits you.”

He smiled with the compliment and took a mouthful of the coffee. It was hotter than he liked it, but Tony was right about it being amongst the best.

“I know you heard about the sighting at the airport,” Tony said after a beat, like the words had been pressing at him the entire afternoon, waiting impatiently to be freed. “I asked Natasha to make sure you knew. Figured she’d know the best way to break it to you without you – you know – staking out the place, or something.”

“She had Sam tell me,” he sighed.

“Yeah, this Sam guy, when are we gonna organise a play-date for us both, huh?” Tony asked, wide-eyed and eager. “I wanna see what I can do about his tech – those _wings_ , Cap, they’re full of promise – I already planned some schematics for a better pair – but also, y’know, I wanna thank him for not letting you go off and get killed. The guy trekked to Russia with you, after all. Anyway,” he pressed on, fingers drumming against his coffee cup to some unknown rhythm that only he could hear, “about Barnes. There’s been another sighting. Figured I oughta tell you about this one, since I’m here and all.” He managed a tense little smile.

Steve leaned into the table. His coffee cup burned against the palms of his hands like a flame. “Where?” he asked. “Is he close?”

“ _Is he close_ ,” Tony repeated, muttering the words with a look of hysteria in his eyes, “Cap, he went to your old place.”

He blinked slowly. “The apartment in DC?”

Tony nodded, watching him very carefully.

Steve wet his lips and calculated how long it’d take him to get there.

“He was there two days ago,” Tony told him, instantly shredding Steve’s plans to steal Tony’s car and speed through to Washington, “it just took a while for the facial scanner to pick him out of the footage. He’s looking a little – worse for wear.”

Steve’s stomach tightened. He’d known that Tony was (illegally) searching government surveillance footage for Bucky, but it had somehow escaped him, somehow passed him right by, that of course that meant that there’d be _footage_ of him.

“Can I see?” he asked. “Show me?”

Tony weighed a decision in his mind. He withdrew his phone from his pocket and tapped the screen a few times, swiping this way and that, far faster with the device than Steve was with his own, and then he put it on the table and pushed it over to him, the screen illuminated with two images.

“These are the frames that triggered the software,” he explained. “There’s the one from Dulles International at the cab rank, and the other’s from outside the 7-Eleven near your apartment.”

Bucky’s hair was longer and more unkempt than before – tangled and greasy, hanging in long ropes around his face and shoved under a nondescript navy baseball hat that helped shield him from prying eyes. He’d lost weight, too. His face was thinner, his cheekbones pushing against his skin almost worryingly so, but he’d grown the beginnings of a beard which helped hide the loss. In both pictures his eyes were downcast.

“He’s hiding his arm,” Steve murmured, taking in the jacket he was wearing. It was thick and bulky, perfect for hiding an eye-grabbing robotic limb with.

“Well, wouldn’t you?” Tony asked, laughing a little and swirling his coffee in his mug. “He’s trying to be inconspicuous, and arms like that don’t exactly blend in.”

Steve handed him his phone back and took a long gulp of coffee, letting it scald his tongue and his throat and pulse hot as it flooded through him.

“Thanks,” he said. “For tracking him… For showing me.”

Tony pocketed his phone with a self-satisfied smirk. “I do it because I care,” he said in that same teasing voice, “and also because I am _desperate_ to get my hands on that arm and find out how it _works_.”

 

~*~

 

It was a Thursday afternoon and he was walking from his car to the supermarket when he felt it. The back of his neck prickled as the fine hairs stood on end, and his skin shivered with fresh goose bumps. His shoulders slowly tensed.

He knew it as surely as he knew himself – someone was watching him.

He slowed and allowed himself a steady, casual glance around the parking lot at the sedans and the station wagons and the people wandering to and from the store. He didn’t see Bucky but he knew he was there. He _knew_ it.

He called Sam the moment he was inside.

“Damn it,” Sam sighed, “this is what I was worried about.”

“I’m not imagining things,” he hissed, eyeing each aisle he passed with a covert glance and heading for the frozen section. He needed frozen peas. “I _felt_ it, Sam – his eyes on me. You can’t tell me you don’t know what that feels like – the hairs on the back of your neck standing—”

“It could’ve been anyone, though,” Sam maintained, “it could’ve been some kid who wanted your autograph.”

“I know it’s not.”

He heard Sam let out a gusty sigh that was equal parts frustration and worry.

 

~*~

 

“If _anyone_ should be wandering around on the roof, it’s me,” Clint said, scaling the drain pipe and swinging himself up on to the guttering. “I’m the one with all the experience with heights in our little rag-tag group of do-gooders.”

“Sam flies for a living and Stark literally flew to outer space,” Natasha said dryly. “That’s as high as heights _get_.”

Clint looked down at her, his face cast with dismay. “Let me have this,” he begged.

She flipped a hand at him and turned back to Steve, letting Clint continue his work without distraction.

“Anyway, like I was saying before Mr Heights over there started climbing the drain pipe, I think we should have the party here next weekend.”

Steve rubbed at the back of his neck. His house was only half finished and he’d never enjoyed parties like he felt he was supposed to.

Natasha read his mind. “It’ll be more of a catch up with drinks than a _party_ ,” she amended. “Just us.”

“Us?”

“You, me, the asshole on the roof,” she began, ticking fingers as she went, “Stark, Pepper, Bruce, Sam, and possibly Thor, if he’s in our neck of the solar system.”

Steve tallied the number. “I don’t even have that many chairs.”

She stared at him. “We can buy some, Steve.”

“We don’t even know if they’re all free.”

“They’re free,” she assured him. At his look of confusion she said, “I started the groundwork already – I asked around, checked schedules, that kind of thing.” She grimaced apologetically. “Consensus says next weekend is the perfect time.”

“And you didn’t think to run any of this past me before you went ahead and planned everything? How do you know I’m not busy?”

“You’re always here fixing the house,” she said, shrugging. “I knew that.”

There was a thud and a brittle _crash_ from the roof, and then a piece of tile came falling off the edge to smash before Steve and Natasha’s feet.

Clint let out a breathy, anxious laugh from somewhere unseen above them. “Fuck me,” he wheezed, “these shingles are _slippery_. Aww, another one.”

There was another sound from the roof and then a second tile shattered on the ground before them.

Natasha scowled upwards. “This is exactly what happened when he offered to fix my cable dish back in '04.”

 

~*~

 

They still ran in the mornings, though the scenery was different. They made a route between Steve’s house and Sam’s apartment and they traced it every day at dawn. Sam listened to music most mornings, his earphones jammed into either ear and the music just loud enough that Steve could hear it in places, the tinny crackle of a new generation of sound. Steve preferred the silence. He liked the hit of his feet against the asphalt and the rasp of their breathing as they raced. He liked the way his ribs ached afterwards, the way he always felt so breathless that he might faint.

Some mornings when the sky was pale Steve would step outside his door and feel eyes upon him. He’d grown used to the feeling of being watched and recognised the sensation more and more with each day, but he never grew tired of it.

_Bucky’s here_ , he thought each time, _Bucky’s here right now._

He wondered if Bucky would come to him if he called out his name. He allowed himself to imagine that he might emerge from the shadows, a ghost, a memory, and draw Steve into his chest and breathe him in again, like before.

“I felt him again,” he said after the run. His shirt was soaked through with sweat and his face burned hot against the cool morning air. His lungs were on fire and his veins were pumping lava, but he’d _felt_ him. “Outside the house when I left this morning. He was there.”

Sam wiped his forehead with his shirt, revealing the toned muscles of his stomach. Steve looked away.

“Don’t do it to yourself, man,” he said breathlessly. “Don’t hurt yourself like this.”

 

~*~

 

The assistant at the hardware store now knew him by name from his frequent visits, which Steve considered a remarkable accomplishment.

“Big job, a vegetable patch,” said Randall the assistant as he showed him to the back of the store and out into the gardening department. The smell of damp soil and vegetation was thick in the air. “You have a spot picked out yet, Steve?”

“Yeah,” he said, eyeing a spiky yellow plant that looked venomous, “and I’ve been working on loosening the soil. Got it nice and soft.”

“That’s a good start,” he said. “Wouldn’t hurt to toss a little compost in there, you know? A little fertilizer… some nutrients.” He led him to a display of bags of soil and other sacks of gardening supplies that all looked the same to him. “You want to give the seeds the best chance to thrive. The better the environment, the better they’ll grow.”

Steve slung a bag of compost and fertilizer over either arm and hoisted them securely into place with ease. Randall ogled him with borderline awe.

“Anything else you think I’ll need to start off with?” he asked.

Randall gnawed on his lip thoughtfully. “How about some seeds, huh?”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

 

~*~

 

“Never had you pegged as a farmer,” Natasha drawled, startling him into spilling more tomato seeds into his hand than he needed.

“I like the idea of a vegetable garden,” he said, tipping the excess seeds back into the packet as best he could. “It’s – I don’t know… pure.”

“It’s kinda dirty, too.” Her eyes travelled his body with a pointed expression. “You look like you’ve been sparring in the mud.”

His jeans were damp in the knees from kneeling in the soil and his shirt was blackened with earth. He was pretty sure he had dirt in his hair, too. She had a point.

“So this is the plan, huh?” she asked. “Lure Barnes out of hiding with fresh vegetables and a renovated house?”

He rubbed his neck. “Something like that.”

She watched him for a while. “Anyway,” she finally said, brushing the conversation aside, “I just came by to drop off the furniture I told you I’d get for the party. Call it a housewarming gift.”

He grimaced. “You didn’t need to do that,” he said. “Honestly, I could have bought some myself.”

“You’ve got your hands full as it is,” she said, smirking a little at the garden, “don’t worry about it, Steve.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “Thanks.”

She smiled and turned to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow for the party.”

He sighed.

 

~*~

 

“Oh my gosh, Steve, it’s so _nice_ ,” Pepper gushed, hurrying forward to run an appreciative hand against the banister around the porch. “This is part of the original house, isn’t it? You’re going to paint it?”

“Good eye,” he said. “It’s going to be white, eventually, but I haven’t sanded it down yet so watch out for splinters.”

“I can see why you bought the place,” she said warmly, returning to where Steve and Tony stood on the half-excavated path, staring up at the work in progress. “It’s like my aunt’s house in Winnipeg, isn’t it, Tony?”

“Oh yeah,” Tony said, nodding just a little too enthusiastically, “spitting image. Two peas in a pod.”

Pepper laughed and weaved her arm through his, giving him a look of utter adoration. Steve looked away.

“The others here yet?” asked Tony. “Bruce said he might be late; something about routine experiments, blah-blah, he’s probably just at home catching the end of _Deal or No Deal_. You know how hard it is to get the guy to leave the house – he’s like some kind of introverted hermit crab.”

“As opposed to an extroverted hermit crab, of course,” Pepper murmured and Tony shrugged.

Steve led the way up the path and into the house. “Natasha and Clint got here first; they’re abusing my kitchen right now.”

“ _Abusing?_ We’re making margaritas!” Clint called from the kitchen, voice hot with indignation.

Pepper stopped short in the hallway. “Wait, where’s the bathroom? Let me see _Sea Foam Mist_ in all its glory. Tony said it’s blue.”

“Honestly,” muttered Tony, “what else do you expect from _Sea Foam Mist_?”

Pepper was crouching on the bathroom floor admiring the claw-foot tub when Sam arrived, a six-pack of beer in hand and a look of nervous trepidation upon his face.

Steve opened his mouth to make the introductions, but Tony got there first.

“Nice to finally meet the new member of the Cap Club,” Tony said, holding a hand out and giving Sam’s a hearty shake. “You gotta give me your contact details, okay? We’ll catch up – I have some prototypes I’d like to show you – for the wings, I mean – but also I’ve been thinking about different suits, stuff that’s more aerodynamic and easier to manoeuvre in—”

“Jesus, Tony,” Pepper breathed, shouldering him aside to pull Sam into a hug, pressing a chaste kiss to his stunned cheek, “let the man breathe.” She smiled at him, all glittering and beautiful. “It’s lovely to meet you, Sam. I’m Pepper. Steve’s told us so much.”

Sam blinked.

“Come on,” Steve sighed, grinning at him, “let’s get everyone out of the bathroom, hey?”

“No Thor, then?” Tony asked, following as they went into the kitchen.

Natasha was sitting on the kitchen counter, drink in hand, and Clint was fiddling worryingly with Steve’s blender.

“He’s a busy man,” Natasha said, sipping from her glass. “He’s not even on Earth right now – I called Jane to check.”

“Aw, man,” Sam muttered, shuffling a little on his feet, “I was really lookin’ forward to shaking that man’s hand.”

“I can give you an autograph if you want,” Clint offered.

Bruce arrived within ten minutes, ringing the doorbell even though Steve had left the door propped open.

“Sorry I’m so late,” he said bashfully, dressed in neat clothes and looking sheepish. “I’m working on an experiment right now that’s dependent on routine – blood tests at precise times and brain scans on the hour, that sort of thing.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Anyway, I bought you a housewarming gift,” he said, and Steve noticed the bag he was holding.

“Bruce,” he began, “really, I don’t need any—”

“It’s nothing big,” he said, handing him the bag with a fond little smile, “just a cook book. I heard you’re a gardener now… figured you might be interested in cooking something with your own produce.” He shrugged, his shoulders jumping nervously, and Steve smiled fondly.

“Thanks, Bruce,” he murmured, “really. It’s a great gift.” He stood aside, welcoming him into the house. “Come in, the others have already started.”

They returned to the kitchen where more introductions were made, Sam shaking Bruce’s hand, and Pepper looked mortified half to death when she saw the housewarming gift from Bruce.

“I didn’t even _think_ ,” she breathed, staring at Steve with shell-shocked horror. “I completely _forgot_.”

“Don’t worry about it, I brought him coffee a couple weeks ago,” Tony told her offhandedly as he focused on finding the perfect ratio of vodka to soda, “that counts as a housewarming gift.”

Clint poured Pepper a glass of whatever he’d been making in the blender – it definitely wasn’t margaritas. “I cleared his gutters, just so you all know,” he announced.

“Yeah, and you broke a dozen shingles,” Natasha murmured, tipping a little vodka into her glass once Tony had finished with it. “You also fell off the roof twice.”

“On _purpose_ , though,” he corrected her. “There’s a difference.”

They moved into the living room which was the least destroyed of all the rooms in the house. He’d removed the wallpaper and the light fixture, leaving it as just a bare bulb, but apart from that it was almost untouched.

“I love this place,” Pepper said, throwing herself on to the sofa and reeling Tony down beside her, “it has charm.”

“It’s a work in progress right now,” Steve maintained. “The backyard looks like a warzone.” He thought of foxholes – thought of Bucky.

Natasha glanced sideways at him and took charge. “He’s making a vegetable garden. Growing _tomatoes_.”

He sat back in an armchair, his friends scattered around him in various states of inebriation. Clint kept making drinks in the kitchen and maintaining full glasses for both himself and Pepper, while Tony and Natasha were sharing a bottle of vodka between them. Sam had beer, and Bruce was drinking cider.

“I don’t know why you didn’t just _call us_ ,” Tony said later, flushed and drunk. “I mean – you were on the run from the government and you – you didn’t even think to call your crime-fighting best buddies? Y’didn’t think we coulda helped?”

“There wasn’t much time for social calls,” Steve told him. “And we handled it ourselves, anyway.”

“And _some people_ didn’t bother answering when I called them,” Natasha added, fixing a dark look upon a red-faced Clint.

“I was on assignment, how many times do I have to apologise for it?” he whined, sloshing a little of his drink down his front. “Fuck, that’s gonna stain.”

Natasha only narrowed her eyes at him and took a stony sip from her glass.

Steve couldn’t get drunk anymore, not with the way his body was. He’d never been a big drinker before the war anyway, but a few times – a handful – he’d gotten drunk with Bucky. When they were drunk they touched more than they usually did – their shoulders brushing together, their legs, their wrists – and Steve was always left feeling light and alive, his skin hot with the rush of alcohol through his bloodstream. He could still see Bucky’s flushed face, his eyes glittering, his lips wet from the drink.

He wondered if Bucky could still get drunk. He wondered if he’d tried.

Clint had his head on Natasha’s shoulder and his eyes were shut. “We should do this more often,” he said. “Get messy together.”

“Maybe not messy,” Bruce tried. “We could – we could do something else. Coffee dates.”

Tony snorted and threw a bottle cap at him. It bounced off of Bruce’s chin and landed somewhere on the floor. “What are we, hipsters?”

“Says Mr I-Know-Of-A-Little-Shawarma-Place-But-You’ve-Probably-Never-Heard-Of-It,” Bruce returned.

“I just think we should hang out more,” Clint continued, louder now. “Hang out in a friendly, friendship way, outside of work.”

Sam laughed. “And by _work_ you mean—”

“Saving the world, yes,” Clint finished. “Fighting aliens. Fighting evil by moonlight.”

“Shh, Sailor Moon,” Natasha said, reaching out and stroking a hand through his hair. “Shh.”

 

~*~

 

Pepper fell asleep on Tony, slumping down against him until her head was in his lap. After that, it was as though they’d all simultaneously agreed that it was time to file out.

“I love the place,” Pepper told him, slinging her arms around his waist and pressing her face into his chest. “God, you’re well made,” she muttered into his shirt, tightening her grip on him.

“Okay, Pep,” Tony sighed, “time to get you out of here before you start molesting the host.”

She laughed, her head falling back and her eyes sliding closed. “God,” she said, smiling and stumbling a little on her way back to Tony, “I am _drunk_.”

Tony smirked. “No! What? Really? I don’t believe it for a second.”

They left first, calling one of Tony’s private cars and offering their thanks for a great evening before disappearing back into the city to Avengers Tower.

“I told you it would be a good night,” Natasha said smugly. She glanced over to where the others were sitting. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bruce this buzzed before.”

“No,” Bruce was saying, “no, you gotta – twist your leg this way, like I’m doing.”

Clint was tied up in some kind of yoga pose, clearly trying to replicate the complicated knot Bruce had turned himself into.

“I am _not_ hanging around when one of you break something and the ambulance is called,” Sam declared, shaking his head at the both of them. “This is some Cirque du Soleil shit.”

“It’s all about inner balance,” Bruce insisted as his eyes slid closed.

“Fuck,” Clint yelped, twisting an arm and collapsing in a heap on the floor.

Natasha grimaced. “Yeah, I think it’s time I got him home.”

Sam left at the same time Natasha and Clint did, the three of them sharing a cab, and then it was just Bruce and Steve.

“It’s good to see you’re doing so well,” Bruce said sagely, somehow managing to sound completely sober even though Steve knew quite well that he wasn’t – his wild hair and carpet burns from his impromptu yoga session could attest to that.

“Thanks,” he said, truly meaning it. “It’s been this house, I think. It’s nice to have something to do.”

“You’re always welcome to come and assist me in the lab, if you get bored of planting seedlings,” he offered, his voice a little high, just a tiny bit tipsy. “But – but I mean it, you know? It’s good. It’s good to see you’re not – I don’t know.”

He walked Bruce out to the street when his cab arrived and accepted his offered hand in a brisk shake goodbye. Bruce staggered into the backseat, blind drunk, and waved against the window as he disappeared, leaving Steve alone in the street, alone in silence, his friends painfully gone.

For a moment he thought he felt eyes on his back.

_Come out_ , he thought, turning on the spot in the middle of the road and looking from shadow to shadow, his head spinning as he turned. _I stopped chasing you, didn’t I? Can’t you give me this?_

He waited for a while, listening to the quiet tick of insects and the buzz from the yellowed streetlights, and then he went inside to bed.

 

~*~

 

Steve ran alone while Sam slept off his hangover. He did two laps of their familiar route, his only company his own ragged breathing and the ache in his body, and then he looped back towards home.

He stopped at the corner store and picked up a bottle of orange juice, the kind with pulp like he preferred, and then he jogged the rest of the way home at a lazy Sunday morning pace.

And then he dropped the orange juice all over his feet, because Bucky was sitting on the front step of his porch, a cigarette pinched between his fingers.

Steve stood in his yard, just a foot inside the gate. He stared and stared, his eyes burning hot, sweat beading over his forehead and rolling down his skin. Orange juice soaked into his socks.

Bucky was there. He was dressed in dark clothes – a hoodie and jeans, a cap on his head, a look of greasiness cast over his pale skin – and his shoulders were hunched together with unease. He brought his cigarette to his mouth and he took a drag, his cheeks pulling tight, his cheekbones casting stark shadows across his face. He had grizzled, dark stubble across his jaw.

_Oh,_ he thought.

Steve wanted to open his mouth and say his name. He wanted to crush the space between them in three even strides and pull him into his arms.

He remembered something from before, something similar; he remembered Bucky on the stairs outside the apartment with the cat at his side.

_Told you,_ he’d said. _It’s all about patience. You have to wait for them to come to you… else you might scare them away._

He wondered a tad deliriously what Bucky would say if he knew Steve was treating him like they had treated the stray. He wondered if Bucky even remembered it.

So Steve took a small step closer before stopping.

“You oughta quit smoking,” he said. He was surprised that his voice stayed level.

Bucky flinched, the little movement almost imperceptible.

“Turns out it causes cancer,” Steve clarified. He wet his lips and felt his hands shake. He wanted so desperately for Bucky to let him know if this was okay. “It could kill you.”

The other man let a short, sharp breath out of his nose. It was a snort, but it carried no amusement.

“Guess it just feels right,” he said after an eternity, and his voice was rough like rust and gravel. He cleared his throat but kept his eyes fixed downwards. “Reminds me of Brooklyn.”

He took a step forward, then another, and then he was standing before him, standing within reach. He splayed his arms out to his side just a little, enough for Bucky to see that he had nothing on him – no gun in his waistband, no knife at his ankle.

_I won’t hurt you_.

“Will you come inside?” he asked, and his voice ached like he did.

Bucky glanced up at him with eyes that were now quick and sharp, but still so very much the same as they’d been back in Brooklyn when they were just kids.

_God_ , Steve thought, _God, it’s him._

He didn’t look like he was going to answer, so Steve swallowed around the lump in his throat and he took a breath before he shakily carried himself up the steps and to the front door. He pointedly did not touch Bucky as he passed, nor did he get too close. He tried not to let it hurt when Bucky flinched away from him.

“I’m going to make coffee,” he said, unlocking the door and pushing it wide open, as far as it would go. “I’ll bring you some.” He stepped into the house before he stopped. “You can come in, if you want. I’ll only be a moment.”

Bucky made no sign that he’d heard; he merely raised his cigarette to his lips and took a drag. Steve made himself enter the house and head for the kitchen. He forced himself to walk away from the one person he wanted to be close to.

As soon as he was in the other room he let himself freak out. He covered his mouth and paced in a circle, eyes wide with disbelief. Bucky was on the porch. Bucky was sitting on his front steps. Bucky had come to him like he’d always hoped he would.

He let out a rush of breath and staggered backwards, leaning against the kitchen counter. It was a mess from the festivities the night before, the sticky remains of something Clint had put through the blender coating most of the countertop, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

He hit the button on the coffee machine and listened to it whir to life. The time it took for the coffee to brew was the longest three minutes of his life. He worried that he’d return and find the step empty, Bucky gone, just the ash on the ground the only sign that he’d even been there to begin with.

Steve filled two cups, making sure to keep Bucky’s coffee hotter than hellfire, just the way he liked it, and then he carried them back outside. He let his feet fall heavily against the floorboards so that his approach was known.

Bucky was still on the step, his hands in knots as he rested his elbows on his knees – he looked like a tightly coiled spring. His cigarette was a crushed smear on the ground.

“Here,” Steve said as he placed Bucky’s cup beside him on the step.

He sat beside him on the step and pointedly looked straight ahead, sipping at his drink as he did. He wanted to turn and look at him so badly that he ached with it, but he didn’t. He gave him the space he wanted.

“Thanks,” Bucky murmured, taking the cup and turning it in his hands. He’d given him one of the cups that Tony had given him – it was Iron Man merchandise and had Tony’s emblazoned upon it, a charming, smug grin on his face.

“It was a gift,” Steve said, answering the unspoken question. “He’s – he thinks he’s funny.”

Bucky took a drink but said nothing.

Steve’s heart was crashing urgently against his ribcage. He chanced a quick glance to his right, just to get a glimpse of him, and found Bucky was already watching him with a steady, fixed expression. Their eyes met and Steve’s breath ran out of him, leaving him hollow and bereft. Bucky didn’t look away.

“Are you okay?” he asked, because he had to.

It took Bucky a long while to respond. “Yes,” he said slowly, like it was only just now registering with him. “Are you?” His scanned Steve’s face for scars. “I left you—” He winced, started again, “You were injured.”

Steve didn’t think now was the time to tell him about the handful of days he spent laid up in hospital with his face a mess and a bullet hole through him. “I heal real quick,” he said instead. It wasn’t a lie.

Bucky watched him for a moment longer, scrutinising the shifts in his expression for truth. When he seemed satisfied he went back to his coffee.

It was still early morning, probably just a little past eight. The birds were chirping and there were cars passing now, people on their way to work or school, people going about their day without any knowledge of the triumphant joy in Steve Rogers’ chest. The world was turning. _Good morning_ , he thought, fingers tight around the warmth of his cup of coffee. _It’s a good day._

The silence was easy, but the questions that pressed against his teeth were harder to endure.

_This was his best friend, reborn._

Bucky sat his cup aside and said, “I need to go.”

For a moment everything hung frozen in midair – Steve’s hope, his smile – before it rushed to the floor, strings cut, glass shattered, and his happiness disintegrating into cold disbelief.

He was presented with a new reality: Bucky had returned only to leave him again. It hurt more acutely than he’d ever imagined it might.

Bucky started for the gate, tugging his cap further down on his head to shield his face. Steve stared after him. His jaw fell open slowly, sluggishly, thick with confusion.

“What?” His voice rang out hollow and thin. “Bucky,” he tried, “you – you just got here.” He heard himself laugh – a choked, weak sound. “Don’t run off already.”

Bucky’s shoulders tensed but he didn’t stop. Steve followed him out of the yard and on to the sidewalk, stepping over the discarded orange juice spill as he did. A car passed, the engine spluttering in the cold.

“Where are you going?” he asked, wanting so desperately to reach out and _hold_ him but knowing all the same that it would be the worst move possible. “Do you have somewhere to stay? I have a spare bedroom – I have a pull out couch—”

“Steve,” Bucky said, and Steve’s world faded into nothing. All that remained was Bucky’s voice wrapped warmly around his name with thick familiarity, a relic from the past.

His breath rushed out of him in a string of aching words, “God, Bucky, I’ve missed you so much.”

Bucky faltered and the lines of his face melted. “I need to _go_ ,” he repeated, and this time it was a plea. “Don’t follow me.”

He reached for him and Bucky slid away.

Steve wet his lips and clenched his fists, wishing he was curling his hand around Bucky’s wrist instead. He felt useless. He was losing him all over again. He stood and watched him walk away, disappearing around the corner and leaving the street as though he'd never been there to begin with.

_I let him go._

And just like that he was left with only his quiet, bruised faith that Bucky would return.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is hella late because university came back with a vengeance and i was unprepared for life. oops sorry.

He sent Sam a message – _Bucky was here. He’s already left._ – and an hour later damage control arrived.

“We come bearing baked goods,” Natasha called, lifting a cake box above her head and treading carefully over the uneven garden path.

Sam was grinning in soft sympathy. “We got éclairs, we got buns, we got donuts – heck, we even got cronuts.”

They ate in companionable silence, sugar in the corners of their mouths and icing on their chins. Sam looked haggard and weary, the effects of the night before still weighing heavily upon him, and Natasha looked particularly dishevelled with her hair in a tangled bun and her eyes ringed in shadows. Steve imagined the three of them combined looked like death dining in a bakery.

They helped him clear the mess from the living room, Sam collecting bottles and caps and Natasha cleaning the glasses while Steve wiped down the entire room from whatever it was Clint had been drinking. It had somehow  _congealed_.

Neither of them mentioned Bucky, though he’d expected them to interrogate him about it or berate him for not calling them earlier. He was grateful.

They left after two hours. Steve walked them to the street where Sam’s car was waiting. 

Natasha hugged him – a rarity for her – and rubbed a hand over his shoulder.

“Stark still has the facial recognition software running,” she said into his shirt, and that was all that was said about it.

“We’ll run tomorrow,” Sam promised, slinging an arm over his shoulder and ruffling his hair a little before releasing him. “Now go and take a shower, man. You stink like a gym. _Hell._ ”

“Thanks guys.”

 

~*~

 

It was easy to keep himself busy when his house was in a state of disrepair.

He started with the hallway, a bucket of soapy water and a sponge at his side. He washed down the wallpaper residue from the board, scrubbing until it was smooth and clean and there was no sign of what had previously covered it.

He listened to old records as he worked, humming along to the ancient tunes that had paved his youth. He wondered if Bucky remembered the songs they’d loved together.

The garden was a challenge, but he steadily worked at it day by day until the progress was visible. He poked holes in the soft soil and he buried seed after seed of all manners of vegetables and fruits. Sprouts grew and wilted in equal measure and he sighed and tried again and again.

“Gardening can be a fickle business,” Randall the hardware assistant said when Steve went back for snail repellent. “It’s hard to know what you’re doing wrong.”

Steve snorted. “Ain’t that the truth.”

 

~*~

 

They met at a coffee shop in Manhattan – Tony’s choice. Sam was in DC for the weekend finishing things with the VA therapy group, and Pepper was in Los Angeles on company business. Despite the miles that separated her them, her presence was still well and truly felt.

“A belated housewarming gift,” Tony said, handing Steve an expertly wrapped package. “Pepper was _insistent._ ”

Steve accepted it gratefully, his face heating and his skin burning pink. “Thank you,” he said, “it really wasn’t necessary, though.”

“Tell Pep that,” Tony muttered, ushering him into sitting down with a bat of his hand. “Put it down somewhere, I don’t know – here, put it here. Anyway, how are things, guys?” He looked around the table at the gathered Avengers. “What’s new? What’s the buzz?”

“Sprained my wrist at training last week,” Clint said morosely, lifting a hand to reveal the brace on his left hand. “I’ve watched two seasons of _Gilmore Girls_ in the meantime, though, so it's not all bad news.”

Natasha tore a sugar packet open and poured the entire thing into her coffee. “I’m considering a haircut, since the ends are practically dead from all the straight ironing.” She twirled a finger through the red strands. “It’s time for a change.”

Bruce picked at his cuffs. “A woman in my yoga class gave me a recipe for gluten free banana bread.”

They looked to Steve. “I talked to Bucky,” he said with a shrug.

The group bristled. Natasha offered him a small, sad smile in encouragement.

“I was going to say I discovered a new way to convert sunlight into energy, but this sounds more important,” Tony said, wriggling forward in his chair with anticipation.

Bruce weighed his chin on his hand and watched. “How did it go?” he asked.

He shrugged again. He found he was unable to meet their eyes. He smoothed his hands against the tabletop, feeling grains of sugar and nicks in the wood under his palms.

They seemed to understand.

“We always knew he was going to be a hard nut to crack,” Clint commiserated. “Spies, man,” he sighed, “they’re poor conversationalists.”

Natasha elbowed him in the ribs. “I think we should be considering the positives here,” she offered. “The fact that he approached you says more than I think any of you realise.”

“But he _ran_ ,” Steve said quickly, the pain coming back to him hot and fresh and _sharp_. “Why does it matter if he approached me if he ran away ten minutes later?”

The waitress approached and Tony sent her away with a wince and a complicated hand gesture that left her scowling and confused. They feigned normality by clearing their throats and shuffling the menus until she was out of earshot.

Natasha leaned in closer. “It matters because he obviously trusts you,” she said in confidential tones. “He left the safety of the shadows to speak with you. That _says_ something.”

“I agree with Romanov,” Tony said, jerking a thumb at her and nodding. “A spy knows a spy, after all.”

She rolled her eyes. “Thanks, Stark. Your confidence means so much to me.”

Bruce offered Steve a smile. “What did you discuss? Did he give you any kind of explanation? Did he say where he’s been, or what he’s been doing?”

Steve had ran their conversation through his head so many times and applied Bucky’s scarce few words to so many filters. He'd looked at them from so many angles, constantly searching for some deeper meaning, for some kind of _clue_ , but he'd had to accept that there was nothing left for him to garner.

“He didn’t say a lot,” he admitted, running a hand over his mouth and sighing. “I asked if he was okay and he said he was, then asked me the same... He mentioned Brooklyn.” It wasn’t much, but it was enough. It meant he remembered _something_ , at least.

Bruce nodded. “And he wasn’t aggressive, or – he didn’t act suspiciously?”

Steve felt the conversation switch gear and he in turn switched into defensive mode. “He wasn’t there to hurt me,” he told them firmly.

The group gave him mixed looks of pity and doubt.

“If he wanted me dead he could have killed me,” he said in a rush, making Bruce wince and shift back into his seat. “He was fine, he was normal – I mean – no, he wasn’t _normal_ , but he was—” He wet his lips and clenched and unclenched his fingers. “He wasn’t like last time, at least.”

The table was trapped in an uncomfortable, tense silence. Tony busied himself with the menu, though Steve was sure he already had it memorised. Natasha tore into yet another sugar sachet and added it to her drink. Bruce scratched at his hair and rubbed his nose. Clint looked vaguely amused.

“Call me crazy,” he said, drawing looks from the others, “but I think Cap can look after himself.”

“Against almost anyone else, yes,” Natasha agreed, and then she fixed Steve with a sorry look and said, “but this isn’t just anyone, is it?”

 

~*~

 

When he got home there were two cigarette butts pressed into the worn wood of the porch steps, but Bucky was nowhere to be seen.

 

~*~

 

“I feel like this is something we should have professional help with,” Sam said as he shielded his eyes against the glare, watching as Clint balanced precariously on the rooftop, gripping the chimney stack for dear life.

“Why waste money on a so-called _professional_ when you have Clint Barton as one of your nearest and dearest friends?” Clint said with a purposeful laugh. “I was raised on the rooftops, Wilson. I was in the _circus_. I am _one_ with heights.”

Steve wore nervously at his lip with his teeth. “You’ve only been out of the wrist brace for a day, Clint. Maybe we should call Natasha.”

Clint froze, his joints locking and the quiver in his legs disappearing. “No,” he said, looking away from the task at hand to fix Steve with a glare. “Don’t. You know she’ll just—”

“Please for the love of god keep your eyes on the chimney,” Steve said hoarsely, feeling queasy just watching him.

Clint made an exaggerated show of gripping tightly to the chimney stack and staring down at him at the same time. “Christ,” he grumbled, “I didn’t know my _mom_ was here.”

“He’s insane,” Sam muttered sideways to Steve, his arms folded and a look of matching concern on his face as he watched Clint prod at the chimney with clear confusion on his face.

Steve nodded. “Completely insane.”

Clint was now peering down the chimney, the sweep in his hand. “Okay, which hole does this broom go down?”

“Yeah, okay, I need to get up there.”

Sam sighed. “I’ll hold the ladder.”

 

~*~

 

There was soot throughout his living room. The dark ash covered his floorboards, some having even made it out into the hall. Even the walls and some parts of the furniture had suffered.

“No one told me we needed to put a sheet down first,” Clint said sheepishly.

Steve massaged his forehead as he studied the mess. “I should have put something under the chimney. A bucket.”

Sam looked morbidly amused. “I am so gladthis isn’t my living room.”

They helped him clear it, but there was only so much that could be done between three people when there was only one vacuum, and besides that, it was already growing dark outside and they’d been helping him since mid-morning.

“You should go home,” he said, wrangling the vacuum away from Clint who had been running it over the fabric of the couch without much success.

“You sure? I don’t mind staying to help out,” he said as his face betrayed his exhausted relief.

“It’s fine, you’ve both helped me enough today.”

“At least your chimney’s clear,” Sam pointed out, leading the way to the front door. “That’s one thing out of the way.”

Clint was enthusiastic. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Now you just have to… clean the entire living room.”

After they went home Steve was left in heavy silence.

He went back to the living room – back to the horror that they had wrought. He’d been thinking about fixing up the fireplace and maybe replacing the mantle, making it bigger. It’d be nice to hang things up over the fire… maybe put a few photographs there. Pepper’s housewarming gift was a framed photograph of the Avengers in all their dishevelled glory, a shot taken in the aftermath of the Battle of New York. They looked sore and weary and were covered in a dusty coating of debris, but the look of relief on their faces was bright. It made Steve’s chest tight – made him grateful. It was humbling.

The doorbell rang.

Pepper, Bruce, and the delivery people from various takeout restaurants were the only people who ever used the doorbell. Sam had a key, Natasha and Clint could pick locks, and Tony just climbed through the window if something stood in his way.

He knew it was stupid to think it and that all he was doing was setting himself up for disappointment, but he hoped it was Bucky.

_It’s probably one of the neighbours,_ he thought desperately, _they probably just want to see what’s going on with the roof. They might want me to keep the noise down – the vacuum’s pretty loud—_

The bell rang again – a loud, cheery tune that crackled a little through the ancient sound system.

“Coming!” he called, leaping over the sooty floor and skidding a little into the hall.

He opened the door just as Bucky pressed the button again. The tune shrilled loudly around them as they stood there face to face.

Bucky blinked at him. “Sorry,” he said slowly, “I was being impatient.”

Steve was pretty sure he was splintering the door handle from how tightly he was grasping it. He could hear the wood straining. He released it with a start.

Bucky looked concerned. “Is now a bad time?”

He forced himself to breathe. “Now’s great,” he said, “now’s perfect. Now’s – now’s amazing.”

Bucky nodded once, a long, slow movement. Steve waited for him to say something and for his own pulse to slow, but neither happened.

“I haven’t had dinner yet,” he said, “I’ve been working all day and I’m starving, I’m – I’m genuinely starving.”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed a little, but he stayed silent on Steve’s worn welcome mat.

“Have dinner with me,” he continued, rambling onwards without a clear destination in mind, “I can cook something – but, y’know, I’m not that… not that good in the kitchen – or we can order a pizza or Thai food, or hey, there’s a new Chinese restaurant around the block that does _amazing—_ ”

“Okay,” Bucky agreed, simple as that.

Steve blinked a little more just in case he was dreaming. “You wanna come in, then?” he asked, stepping aside so that Bucky could see into the house, could see the long, empty hallway and the open door through to the kitchen at the end of it. He watched Bucky’s eyes flicker against the walls and wanted so desperately for him to say yes, to come inside, to enter Steve’s life again.

He hesitated for a moment before finding an answer. “Okay,” he said again, “yeah.”

Steve’s chest tightened and he took a shallow, shaky breath. He could hear the rush of his blood behind his ears and he could see star-bursts behind his eyelids when he blinked. He was sure his face was flushed – or maybe he was paper-white with shock – and he was certain Bucky had noticed the way he was shaking.

Bucky gestured for Steve to walk ahead and for a brief moment – a split second in time – he thought of his lunch with the others and of their concern that Bucky could hurt him. But the second passed and he dismissed it. He walked ahead, allowing Bucky his back.

“I’m renovating,” he explained without need, running a hand over the bare wall in the hallway that he’d scrubbed clear of wallpaper. “I’m fixing the place up.”

He talked quietly about primers and glues and the colours he thought might look nice, and he bounced on his heels on the floorboards, letting the squeaking of the ancient wood echo around them. He tried to pretend Bucky was just Pepper, just Natasha, just Clint or Sam. He tried not to faint.

Bucky didn’t offer much in way of conversation. He nodded dutifully when Steve looked to see if he was listening and once or twice he made a thoughtful sound, but he didn’t voice an opinion once.

Steve glanced back at him more than was strictly necessary, twisting his neck every few steps just to be sure he was still there, that he wasn’t just hallucinating or having some cruel dream. It didn’t fit within the confines of his reality that such a thing could be happening to him.

It was just—

It could easily have been a dream. Bucky in his dark navy hoodie, just a strip of grey t-shirt visible at his chest – it was obscene and strange, like something from a fantasy. He knew Bucky in his army fatigues with blood and dirt smeared across the khaki; he’d never imagined what he’d look like in modern clothing. He allowed himself a brief second to picture Bucky in something Tony might wear – a sharp suit and a dress shirt with the top few buttons undone, a pair of darkly tinted glasses pushed up into his hair. He imagined him in jeans and a t-shirt, the kind of thing that Clint always wore, something that might read _Honk If You’re Horny._

He wanted to ask him about the world. _Have you tried the internet? Have you been to our old neighbourhood? Have you seen the way time moved on without us?_ He wanted so desperately to pull words out from deep inside him. He wanted to listen to Bucky talk about the way the world had changed without them.

_Talk to me_ , he thought. _Tell me about yourself. Let me in._ _I want to know your thoughts._

It didn’t go unnoticed that Bucky’s eyes flickered constantly to the exits. He glanced at the doorways and the windows and the electrical outlets. He scanned the ceilings and he swept the floors with quick eyes. When Steve moved too fast, Bucky tensed. He was a twitching, nervous mess – but he was _there._

Bucky paced the length of Steve’s kitchen twice before he seemed satisfied. He stood by the counter – coincidentally the only place where he could see the door to the hall, the door to the backyard, the windows, _and_ still keep an eye on Steve – and he breathed short, shallow breaths that made his chest fall quickly back and forth.

“What do you feel like eating?” Steve asked, pulling open the pantry and running an eye over the scarce contents. “I have a heck of a lot of tinned spaghetti, but there’s also—” He pulled out a packet of something and inspected it with narrowed eyes. “—Huh. Quinoa.”

Bucky looked at him. “I don’t—” He cut himself short. His eyes were shadowy and his mouth pulled downwards.

Steve paused, quinoa in hand. Bucky had spent the better half of the century in and out of cryogen, but unlike Steve he hadn’t exactly had the time to explore the newest culinary delights. He’d been busy doing – other things.

“Pizza, then,” he said gently, returning the quinoa to the pantry and shutting it after himself. “Remember the place near your ma’s house that used to make it? Back when we were kids?”

Bucky merely blinked.

“Okay, then,” Steve sighed, decision made, “I’ll call and place an order.”

Bucky wandered the kitchen as Steve dialled the familiar number ( _BEST PIZZA_ was the contact name in his phone, courtesy of Clint) and listened to the hold music buzzing in his ear. He watched Bucky and studied him with keen interest.

Bucky seemed to almost be measuring his footsteps as he took in the room. He walked from the counter to the window before he turned and went to the door. He ran his gloved hand over the windowsills, his fingers tripping over and over, drumming against everything he touched, and his brow furrowed at the occasional creak from the floorboards.

Steve ordered a pepperoni pizza to be delivered in twenty minutes, and then it was just the two of them without any distraction in between. Silence stretched thickly around the room, enveloping them.

Bucky was standing at the windowsill and staring out into the yard. Steve’s pathetic vegetable patch was probably just barely visible in the dark, if he could see past the glare in the glass.

“You know,” Steve started, earning a small jump from Bucky, “as soon as it was all over the first thing I did was book a flight to Moscow.”

Bucky turned and frowned at him, which was more of a reaction than he’d thought he’d get.

“We figured it was where you were headed,” he continued. “It took a lot of _incredibly_ illegal surveillance to keep tabs on you, and even then it was – spotty.”

Bucky shook his head brusquely, his hair shaking against his face. “You shouldn’t have followed.”

He sighed. “That’s what everyone says.”

“Then maybe you should listen to them.”

Bucky looked back to the window, his own reflection staring back at him from the glass.

Steve counted his breaths and listened to his pulse slow.

“Why did you run?” he asked. He’d been thinking about it from the time he woke up in hospital with the white-hot faith that it had been Bucky who had pulled him from the water alive.

“Which time?” he asked, and Steve let out a sad snort. He supposed there was humour, there.

“After you saved me,” he clarified.

“After I nearly killed you.”

“But you didn’t. You pulled me from the water when you could have let me drown.”

“I ran because I had to,” he said. He paused and shook his head. “I run because I have to.”

“But you don’t have to anymore,” he said, the words rushing out of him, hot and heavy and desperate, “S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA are gone—”

Bucky spun on his heel to face him, quick like a piston with eyes that were hot like coals. “Don’t underestimate them,” he said in a low voice, “don’t let them have the upper hand by lowering your defenses.”

“ _Bucky_ ,” he breathed, and the nickname made Bucky’s eyes twitch, made him shiver, “I _promise you_ , there’s nothing you need to run from here.”

Steve watched his throat shift as he swallowed with a sound that was thick and painful. He watched Bucky’s eyes trace the line of his mouth and the height of his brow.

After a long while he said, “Maybe not _here_.”

“You’re safe now,” he promised. He didn’t think he’d ever meant something so much in his life. He knew with pure, burning decisiveness that he wouldn’t allow Bucky to be hurt ever again. “I’m not letting anything happen to you – I’m never making that mistake again.”

Bucky smiled, small and sad, and Steve knew it was for his benefit only.

“Come on,” he said after a long break, “let me show you the rest of the house.”

Steve led him through the house on the grand tour, pointing out the renovations he’d both started and was planning. Bucky’s eyes widened at the sooty living room and at the exposed wires hanging out of the sockets in the guest room, but kept mostly to himself.

Steve kept an attentive eye on Bucky in the hopes that he might see the tension leech from his shoulders or the strain ease from his arms. He hoped he’d calm down. He hoped he’d be there to see the moment he switched from Bucky the Winter Soldier, to Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers’ best friend.

The pizza arrived and they ate it in the kitchen at the small table. Steve ate ravenously, suddenly reminded of the chores he’d done earlier – crawling over the roof and cleaning a chimney was difficult work. Bucky ate with the same kind of raw hunger but he was quiet about it, restrained.

Despite that, it quickly became apparent that not even the Winter Soldier could eat pizza and still look menacing.

Cheese ran in thin strings from his lips to his slice and tomato paste was slicked over his lip. Pepperoni kept falling on his shirt and into his lap and though he tried, he was never quite fast enough to catch it before it fell.

Steve also discovered that watching Bucky dab at his mouth with a napkin was endearing beyond belief.

“I’ve missed you,” he said for the second time now. It had come out of nowhere this time and Bucky’s raised eyebrows said as much.

Bucky licked his lips and looked trapped.

“You don’t have to say it back,” Steve said quietly.

Bucky settled his slice of pizza down on his plate, his brow furrowed in thought.

“I never knew what I was missing,” he said slowly, considering each word carefully before giving them voice. Steve was reminded of their French lessons in school and the slow, methodical way they had stumbled through the unfamiliar language. “I never realised I missed you until you were there again.” He looked at Steve for his reaction.

Steve’s throat was tight and dry and he was overwhelmed with emotion: hatred for Zola and HYDRA for hurting Bucky, and such hot, bright, weightless _relief_ that he was back and safe. It throbbed in his chest like a living thing. _Safe, safe, safe_. _Back, back, back. Bucky, Bucky, Bucky._

Bucky was picking at his pizza again, peeling off the toppings and eating them on their own. It was such a strangely human thing that went against everything Steve had seen him do – this was not the Winter Soldier, this was not the man who had hurt them. This was James Barnes, the boy who smoked too much and never left Steve alone when he had so much as the sniffles.

“Do you have someplace to stay?” he asked, watching him suck the grease from his fingertips.

He glanced at him, then back at his food. “Yes.”

“Do you really,” he pressed, “or are you only saying that to get me off your back?”

“I have a place to stay.”

Steve took a bite and chewed it listlessly. “I don’t suppose you’d tell me where, though.”

Bucky’s lip quirked – just a little, just enough for Steve to smile in turn. “Not a chance.”

“Wouldn’t want to let your guard down, huh?” he murmured, mostly to himself. Then, “Won’t you please stay here with me?”

“I’ve seen the guest bedroom and the couch, and neither seems all that fit for habitation,” he said. “I’m fine on my own.”

Steve inwardly vowed to work on the guest bedroom until it was habitable enough for him. He’d buy a bed and everything. That was probably a good place to start.

“You’re always welcome here,” Steve told him. He needed him to know and to be certain of it. Sometimes it wasn’t enough to be made an offer; sometimes you had to be asked. “I want you here. I’ll always want you.”

Steve gathered their napkins and the neglected crusts and folded them inside the pizza box, ready to be taken to the curb with the rest of the garbage. Bucky watched him silently. Steve marvelled at the utter domesticity of the situation – he’d just had a pizza with his best friend from the 1940s, the two of them still looking no older than mid-twenties.

“I need to go,” Bucky announced, sounding a touch guilty. “Thank you for dinner.”

Steve felt the now familiar kick of panic rising in his gut. “Can’t you stay?”

Bucky stood, unfolding himself from the chair and standing, stretching a little on his toes. “I’ll come back eventually, if you want me to,” he said.

Steve stumbled to his feet with pre-serum clumsiness and followed him, chasing him across the kitchen and into the hall. “Come tomorrow,” he said (begged), “I’ll be working on the guest room. You can help me pick the paint for the walls.”

“Maybe,” said Bucky, and he stopped just inside the front door at the end of the hall. Steve could feel the chill that seeped through from outside and he shivered with it.

They stood with only a foot of space between them. All Steve could think was that once, not so long ago, he’d thought it had been death that had separated them.

Bucky read his expression, caught the tremor in his jaw. “I’ll come tomorrow,” he said softly, “I’ll be here. I promise.”

Steve’s cheeks hurt from his smile.

 

~*~

 

“You want me to come over later?” Sam asked, wiping the sheen of perspiration from his forehead with his arm. “I’ll lend a hand with the living room?”

Steve drank deeply from his water bottle before breaking away, gasping breathlessly. “No,” he panted, “no, no, it’s okay. It’s fine. I’ve already done it, anyway.”

Sam’s bullshit detector rivalled even Natasha’s. “What are you hiding from me, man?” he asked, squinting at him as though Steve was a piece of abstract art that needed deciphering. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

He pressed his lips tightly together, which only made things worse.

“Oh ho!” Sam laughed. “You _are_ hiding something! Look at you, tryin’ to keep it locked up.” He danced a little, more than appropriately pleased at Steve’s attempt at lying.

“What is that?” Steve demanded bemusedly. “Are you doing a jig? Is that what that is?”

Sam peeled with laughter. “Maybe,” he said. “Can’t a man take glee from the fact his pal can’t lie worth a damn? Who knew Captain America had a god awful poker face.” He paused, considering it. “Actually, that probably makes sense.” He squinted further at him, the jig forgotten. “You’re all about honesty and truth.”

“I’m also just a shit liar,” he allowed.

Sam grinned with all his teeth. “C’mon,” he urged, “spill the beans to Sammy.”

“Fine, fine,” he sighed. “I saw Bucky last night. We had dinner together.”

Sam stared at him with plain disbelief. “Like – a date?”

“What?”

“You had dinner together?”

“We shared a _pizza_ as _friends_.” He stared wide-eyed at him. “Jeez.”

“Hey, this is 2014,” he said, “a man can have dinner with whoever he wants, romantically or otherwise.”

He gave him a withering look. “I know that.”

Sam wandered in a vague circle, hands on his hips and face directed beseechingly at the sky. “So,” he began, “Barnes, huh? He go running off again like last time?”

“Actually,” he sighed, already earning a puzzled glance from Sam, “he stayed for about an hour. We talked a little.” He paused and allowed himself a moment to smile. “He said he’d come back today.”

“So he’s talking now?”

“He said more than last time, at least.”

“And he didn’t give off any murder vibes? Didn’t flex his arms menacingly? Didn’t give you the death glare?”

“No, no, and no.”

Sam grinned. “Well,” he said, “looks like things are coming together for you, man. I’m happy for you.”

He considered it for a moment. “So am I,” he said. “Happy, I mean.”

Sam smiled. “C’mon, then,” he said, starting a jog, “we gotta get you home for your date with Barnes.”

Steve blushed to his ears and chased after him. “Christ.”

 

~*~

 

Bucky arrived at noon, looking anxious and uneasy. He was dressed in the same set of clothes he’d been wearing every other time Steve had seen him, both in person and in the surveillance footage Tony had showed him. He wondered if Bucky only had the one outfit to his name.

“What do you think about scrubbing walls?” Steve asked.

He cocked his head to the side, his eyebrows drawn roughly together. “I don’t know.”

“How’d you like to help me scrub some, then? It’s okay if you don’t want to—”

“I’ll do it.”

Steve had the record player in the corner of the guest room and one of his records was already playing quietly, a smooth song crackling from the speaker – one of Glenn Miller’s, he thought.

“You have any requests?” he asked. “I’m pretty sure I have just about everything we ever liked on record here somewhere.”

Bucky removed his cap and sat it on a lumpy cloaked piece of furniture. His hair was in desperate need of a wash. “I don’t listen to music,” he said.

In the summers of their youth they’d always lie sprawled on the floor of Bucky’s living room listening to his mother’s wireless, the music crackling and loud but so rich to their ears. Bucky would drum his fingers and hum along, his foot tapping to the beat. Steve would roll his head and press his cheek against the carpet to watch him; Bucky always had his eyes closed, his eyelashes dark against his pale skin. His smile had always been soft and warm.

“Remember that time we thought we’d broken your ma’s wireless?” he asked as he turned back to Bucky. “We panicked and tried to find someone to fix it before she got back from work.”

Bucky’s brows creased in thought. “We’d only knocked the dial,” he said. “Lost the channel.”

Steve grinned. “We were real idiots.”

Bucky’s mouth twitched. It was enough.

With the music still playing, Steve filled two buckets with soapy water and handed Bucky a sponge. Steve started in one corner and Bucky in the other, the intention being to meet somewhere in the middle.

Scrubbing walls was hard work and Steve wasn’t above admitting it. It made his shoulders ache from the broad, sweeping stretches with the sponge, and a twinge grew along his spine and the back of his neck. Still, it was soothing in its own strange way. The repetitive back and forth motion was enough to relax him. He wondered if Bucky felt the same.

He kept sending covert glances across the room at the other man. Bucky worked quickly and methodically and covered wide stretches of wall with each stroke; he’d already covered more than twice the amount Steve had. A pink flush had risen over his skin and a sheen of sweat clung to his forehead. Steve was the same.

“This is sweltering work,” he said once the beads of sweat on his brow were growing to be too much to ignore. Bucky stopped to watch him as he tossed the sponge back into the bucket and peeled his sweatshirt over his head. It would be easier in just an undershirt.

He saw Bucky’s eyes run over his body: along the curve of his back, the tapering of his waist, the bulk of his arms. He wondered if it disturbed him. Bucky knew the smaller version of Steve, the scrawny kid who picked fights with men twice his size. He’d only know this version of Steve for a short while before—

He wet his lips and sighed. He wouldn’t think about that.

“You know,” he said, startling Bucky into blinking just a little, “I have clothes you could borrow if you’re too hot in that.” He nodded at him, gesturing at the thick hoodie.

“No thank you,” he said in a clipped voice. “I’m fine.”

Steve wondered if Bucky was ashamed of his arm. He’d been keeping it hidden under the thick sleeve of his hoodie and the single leather glove he was yet to remove. He supposed it could have been a tactical decision, a conscious action made by the part of Bucky that thought like a KGB assassin. Tony had been right – what was more conspicuous than a glistening metal arm? But then there was the other part of Bucky – the part that had been lost to years of mistreatment and brainwashing, the part that had once been a smirking boy who helped rescue stray cats. That Bucky would have reacted with shame to the new addition to his body. He’d have wanted it gone. He’d have hidden it. He’d have seen it as a curse, a sin, a reminder of what had been done to him – and what he had done in turn.

They went back to work at scrubbing. Steve caught himself humming along to the music. Ella Fitzgerald was singing and it took him back to the days before the war, to a time when things were simpler.

Bucky made a sound and Steve looked over just in time to see his hand tremor and the sponge drop wetly to the floor. Bucky stared at his hand for a moment, the leather glove shining with water. He clenched and unclenched his fingers and then tested each finger individually.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Steve asked. “Your hand?”

Bucky stopped testing his hand and bent to pick up the sponge. He didn’t look at Steve but went right back to cleaning. “It’s operational,” he said, “everything is fine.”

Steve frowned at his back. He watched his arm moving. Like this, with it hidden beneath the fleece of his sleeve, there was no way of knowing it wasn’t his own flesh and blood.

“You sure?” he asked.

Bucky nodded but didn’t say another word.

There were so many things that Steve wished he had the opportunity to say but kept himself from voicing, if only for how he feared Bucky would react. He didn’t know what might upset him or what might make him retreat.

_I don’t care about the arm_ , he thought with conviction. He wished he could say it without upsetting him.

He decided to risk it. There were things he needed to offer.

“My friend Tony,” he said, “he works in technology. He’s Howard Stark’s son.”

Bucky’s shoulders clenched. Steve sensed some unwillingness, so he took a step back.  _Less personal_ , he thought.

“He’d be able to look at your arm for you if you wanted. He’d jump at the chance.”

Bucky’s hand stilled on the sponge. Steve saw a fine trickle of water run down the wall, soapy and quick.

“It’s fine,” he said.

Steve regretted ever opening his mouth. “I believe you,” he said, “I only thought you’d want to know. Just in case you ever wanted it checked over.”

They went back to working with only the music as background noise. Silence was safer than any of Steve’s attempts at conversation, and they got more work done, besides. Soon enough they’d cleaned all four walls within the hour, quicker than Steve had hoped they’d be.

“I’m thinking of painting the walls green,” he said with his hands on his hips in the centre of the room, turning on the spot to see the walls properly. “Maybe blue.” He looked at Bucky. “What do you think?”

Bucky blinked up at the walls. “Whatever you want.”

“C’mon,” he pressed, hyper aware of the dangerous ground he was walking, “I want to know what you want.”

“It’s not my decision,” he said eventually. “This is your house.”

“Yes, but I want your opinion. I _value_ your opinion.”

He waited while Bucky eyed him strangely.

A flare of sad sympathy struck him in the chest and he fought his expression into staying neutral. “It’s not a trick question, you know,” he said. “I genuinely need your help. We both know I shouldn’t be allowed to make these kinds of decisions for myself.”

There was the soft, quiet sound of Bucky snorting.

“Remember my bedroom?”

“You painted it brown,” he murmured. “Some artist, you are.”

Steve beamed. “Exactly,” he said, “that’s why I need _guidance_ here. I needed help picking the paint for the bathroom – I nearly chose _Dandelion_.”

Bucky side-eyed him and his lip quirked upwards in what was _almost_ a smirk. He hesitated for a moment. “I like blue,” he said.

“So do I.”

The song changed. It was something quick, something he’d heard once or twice at the dance halls with Bucky before the war. He looked to him to mention it and found Bucky smiling.

“I remember this one,” he said, a look of warm relief on his face and in the curve of his mouth. Steve wanted to put his hand on his cheek and to feel his smile under his fingertips.

“Yeah?” he asked. He wanted to hear their past in Bucky’s voice.

He shook his head a little dismissively and for a second Steve’s heart fell cold.

“Please,” he urged, and Bucky’s eyes were big and light and fixed solely on him, “tell me about it?”

Bucky pushed his hand through his stiff, unwashed hair. When it was out of his face he looked so different, so open. In those brief moments it was almost the old Bucky, the one with the slicked hair and the charming smile. He was still in there and Steve was seeing him more and more.

“We were at the dance hall,” he said hesitantly, glancing at Steve for encouragement, “you went up to Daisy Adams and asked her to dance. She turned you down and went off to dance with some other fella—”

“Walter Young, he was in the class above us at school,” he interjected, remembering it almost as though it had happened the day before. Bucky had called him Walter Old from that day on, trying to be funny.

Bucky’s eyes were bright. “You went up to him like you were ten feet tall and full of brawn,” he remembered. “You told him to step outside with you.” He swept his head in an incredulous shake. “You, this scrawny little thing.”

“I didn’t fight him because he danced with Daisy,” he murmured, “it was because he called her easy, after.”

Bucky favoured him with a smile, the kind that he’d given out freely before the war had stolen it from him. “I had to peel you off him.”

He smirked. “I didn’t lose all those fights.”

“No, just most of ‘em.”

He remembered the way Bucky had laughed and clapped him on the back, his breath fogging in the air as he let out a whoop of exultation. Walter had staggered to his feet, snow in his hair and blood on his lip, and Bucky had caught Steve by the wrist and tugged him along, dragging him.

“C’mon, you mad man,” he’d said, laughing like he was bursting with it, “before he gets his boys and we end up in crutches and slings.”

They’d walked the long way home in case anyone had been laid up waiting for them around any corners. Their sides had brushed as they’d walked and Steve had feigned fatigue so he could drift closer, closer, closer, until their hands were brushing, their fingers grazing. Bucky never moved away.

It had been darker at night, then. The stars had been so close.

 

~*~

 

They were painting the bedroom with the leftover _Sea Foam Mist_ paint from the bathroom. After the first hour Bucky spoke.

“The other day,” he said, “when you asked me why I ran – I didn’t give you a fair answer.”

Steve paused with his brush in hand. A spot of paint fell from the bristles and landed on his foot.

Bucky didn’t look at him – he continued to push the roller brush up and down against the board, spreading the fine blue paint over the bare expanse of wall. “I told you I ran because I had to,” he reminded him.

“You had to, Buck,” he reassured him, “if S.H.I.E.L.D.—”

The brush trembled against the wall. “I ran because I was scared,” he said in a rush. “I started splitting at the seams – Your face – I pulled you from the water and I ran.”

Steve opened his mouth but nothing came out. Bucky lowered the brush to the floor but didn’t turn to face him.

“You’d think I’d realise something was missing,” he said, his voice dark and sour. “You’d think I’d have known – deep down, at least – that I’d forgotten something. Heck, forgotten _everything_.”

He crossed the room before he could doubt himself. “Buck—”

He spun, eyes wide. There was a thin smear of paint on his temple and specks had fallen in his hair like rain.

“It took me sixty-something years to realise you were gone,” he breathed. He looked horrified. “ _Decades_ , Steve. God, the things I did—”

It happened quickly. Steve shook his head – _no, no, don’t think that, please don’t do this to yourself_ – and Bucky’s eyes were shining and wet, and then Steve’s arms were open and he was pulling Bucky in, holding him against his chest, hugging him like his life depended on it. He was so warm.

“Buck,” he said, an arm around his waist and the other across his back, his hand resting against the nape of his neck with his hair through his fingers.

It was the first time they’d touched since everything had happened and Steve was painfully aware of it.

Bucky, though – he stood rigidly in Steve’s grasp with his arms tight at his sides. When Steve shifted so that his fingertips trailed over the soft skin at the back of his neck he felt Bucky sigh against his throat. The heat of his breath made his skin feel cold.

_He could kill me_ , he realised. It wasn’t a terrifying thought.

Slowly Bucky thawed. His shoulders fell and the stiffness in his limbs leeched away. He leaned against Steve’s chest and allowed him to carry his weight, to support him how Steve had wanted to for so long. Finally his arms rose and curled around Steve’s torso, returning the hug with matched desperation.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked into Steve’s shirt. “For everything.”

Steve rubbed his hand over his shoulders and held him.

 

~*~

 

“I don’t remember everything,” Bucky said as he sat cross-legged on the floor on the drop sheet. He picked at the noodles in his take-out box and sniffed. “There are blank spots - holes.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Steve promised. “It’ll come back.”

Bucky looked at him, his eyes red-ringed and sore. “And if it doesn’t?”

“I’ll remind you.”

 

~*~

 

The sun was setting as they stood in the backyard, Bucky with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

“Do you remember your ma’s garden?” Steve asked, crouching by the vegetable garden and poking at the soil with the trowel. “She grew the best tomatoes.”

“I remember,” he said, blowing smoke into the sky. “She’d wring your neck if she saw the state of yours. These sprouts look god awful.”

Steve pouted. “What’s wrong with them?”

Bucky snorted. “That there?” he said, pointing with the bright burn of his cigarette at the garden. “That’s a weed. And these need more water. Does this get full sunlight in the day?”

Steve blinked. “You wanna help me with it sometime?”

“Can I _teach_ you, you mean.” Bucky smirked.

“Will you teach me?”

His smirk softened into a smile. “Sure,” he said. “Sure, Steve. Yeah.”

 

~*~

 

The walls were slick with fresh paint, the brushes had been washed, and the tins had been resealed for the next time they needed them. Bucky stood to the side and watched as Steve slid them into a cupboard in the laundry.

“Gotta say,” he began, earning a glance from Steve, “I’m surprised you didn’t buy your old apartment in Brooklyn, or – I don’t know – something from the ol’ neighbourhood.” He looked so sincere.

“I haven’t been back there yet,” he admitted, dusting his hands and meeting Bucky in the doorway. “It’d only upset me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re not curious? You don’t wanna know who’s all cosied up in your old place? You didn’t even think about it?”

“Course I thought about it,” he muttered. He swallowed and pushed a hand through his short hair. “I just figured it was better this way. No point in trying to live in the past.”

Bucky’s eyes were unreadable.

“I loved it there,” he said, “but the past is in the past. It’s time to make new memories.”

They stood there silently. Bucky distractedly ran the tip of his tongue over his lips and sighed.

“Guess you got a point,” he said finally. “Jeez, Rogers, when’d you start making sense all the time?”

“I’ve always made sense; you just never listened to any.”

 

~*~

 

He woke to the sound of the front door opening and footsteps in the hall. He was upright and alert almost instantly – and so was Bucky.

There was a brief moment of confusion – _Bucky’s here?_ – before he remembered the events of the night before: Thai food; painting the guest room; Bucky talking quietly about before the war; falling asleep on the couch with infomercials for cookware muted on the TV; the feeling of immense happiness and satisfaction clutched warmly in his ribcage.

“Wait,” he mumbled, his tongue sleep-muddled, and he staggered after Bucky and into the hall.

Bucky was quicker.

He was already tensed for a fight, his shoulders squared and his arms raised. “Who do you work for?” he demanded – and _holy shit_ was that a _knife_ in his hand?

Sam stood at the opposite end of the hall in his running gear, two coffees in a tray in one hand and his keys in the other. He had an (understandable) expression of immense fear upon his face.

“Uh, I’m – currently unemployed, but – Veterans Affairs?”

“Military,” Bucky seethed, and his wrist turned with the knife—

Steve caught Bucky’s arm and pulled it down, forcing the knife to his side and out of an offensive position. Bucky turned a harsh, wild look at him, his teeth bared.

“ _Stop_ ,” he said, soft but authoritative. He felt his entire body shaking with adrenaline. “That’s Sam. He has a key to the place.”

Bucky’s eyes flashed and his jaw clenched and unclenched, the muscles in his jaw twitching, but he slowly did as he was asked. His posture loosened but he didn’t abandon his defensive half-crouch. Steve watched him sadly, regretful that he still felt like this – like he had to fight to survive.

Sam looked faint. “Did I interrupt something?” he croaked. “Because I can come back later.”

Steve ran a hand over his face and scrubbed at the sleep in his eyes. _What a way to start the day._

“Sam, meet Bucky Barnes,” he said, flourishing a hand at his tense best friend. He still had specks of paint in his hair and a smudge of it on his forehead. “Buck, this is Sam Wilson. He’s a friend. He helped me out recently.”

Sam managed a tense little smile that was definitely for show. “Nice meetin’ you,” he said. “Cap’s got big stories about the two of you.”

Steve saw the precise moment Bucky recognised him and a haunted expression settled upon his face. “I hurt you,” he said in a brittle voice, “I remember pulling you out of the air.” His skin was pale and his eyes were large and glossy. Steve felt useless watching. “I’m sorry for what happened on the bridge and the hellicarrier… and for startling you now. It’s—” He tensed again, his jaw jumping as he clenched it. “Old habits die hard.”

Sam was watching him with a look that Steve didn’t think he’d seen on him before. “You scared me shitless,” he muttered, “but I know about your situation, man, so don’t stress it too hard, alright? Just – y’know –maybe next time try a more subtle approach. Maybe leave the knife behind?”

Bucky pocketed the knife with deliberate care. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The two of them seemed to remember Steve’s presence at the same time.

“Uh,” Sam drawled, “I bought coffee.” He lifted the drink tray in his hand and grimaced awkwardly. “Only got two, though. Didn’t realise you had a guest.”

Bucky shifted his weight and ran his hand through his hair, pushing it so that it fell in front of his eyes. “I need to go,” he said, “I didn’t mean to stay this long.”

Panic licked at the forefront of his mind, hot and overwhelming.

“You don’t have to,” he said quietly. Sam turned to inspect the walls with exaggerated gestures. “You can stay – I’ll make coffee.”

Bucky’s eyes lingered on Sam. “No,” he said, “I need to go. You’re busy.”

_I’m never too busy for you_ , he wanted to say. _I have all the time in the world for you if you want it._

Instead he asked, “Come back tomorrow? I’m free all morning.”

Bucky started for the door without making any sign that he’d heard or understood.

“Wilson,” he said, nodding courteously as he passed him.

“Seeya round, Barnes,” Sam said after him, looking as shell-shocked as Steve felt.

Bucky disappeared through the front door and shut it sharply behind him. Steve stood in place and stared after him as though it had been some strange hallucination.

He’d thought they’d made real progress the night before – Bucky had talked about what he remembered; they’d _hugged_ ; his voice had slipped into a familiar Brooklyn drawl. To Steve it felt as though they’d taken one step forward and two steps back.

There were several long beats of silence before Sam looked at Steve.

“That experience right there?” he said, pointing a finger in the direction of the door Bucky had just fled through. “That just knocked ten years off my life expectancy. Man, I think I have a weak heart now.”

Steve grimaced. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know what the fuck just happened.”

Sam offered him his coffee and Steve took it with thanks.

“Looks like your boy got scared all of a sudden,” Sam surmised with an apologetic shrug. “Guess I should’ve knocked.”

“No, you had every right. He shouldn’t have gone on the offensive like that. He drew a _weapon_ , Sam. In the _hallway_. On _you_.”

They wandered into the kitchen and as Steve dug through the pantry for cereal Sam leaned against the counter, sipping his coffee and theorising on Bucky’s behaviour.

“I see this kind of stuff a lot in group therapy with the veterans,” he said solemnly. “PTSD and all kinds of trauma – it’s real common with people who’ve been through war.”

“Jeez,” Steve sighed, stopping dead with a box of Corn Flakes in his hands, “that fits.”

Sam merely nodded with a look of sad understanding. “Barnes, he’s gone through hell and come out the other side again. You can’t expect him to have done that unscathed. He’s got wounds, Cap, and I don’t just mean cuts and bruises. Shit he’s seen? That leaves _scars_.”

He poured himself cereal and ran over everything that had just happened.

“What a great first impression you just got, huh?” he said after a while. “He came at you with a knife.”

“To be fair, my first impression of him was back when he tried to kill us all. Also, he broke my wings. Doesn’t matter though,” he added, “I don’t place much faith in first impressions. It’s what comes after that matters.”

He stirred a spoon through the flakes, feeling morose. “I hope he changes your mind,” he murmured. “I hope he shows you.”

Sam offered him a small smile. “I hope so too.”

 

~*~

 

Bucky still hadn’t returned by midday the next day, and Steve had plans to meet with the others at one. He contemplated cancelling and waiting at home in case he came, but the likelihood of that happening seemed slim, and besides, he’d given them his word he’d be there.

“ _Someone’s_ in a foul mood today,” Clint cooed when Steve entered the training facility at Avengers Tower. “You’ve brought your own little raincloud in with you.”

Steve favoured him with a withering look and said, “Shut it, Barton.”

That caught the others’ attention.

“Yeah, something’s up,” Tony said, his face a rosy, sweaty pink and his gym shirt dark with perspiration. “What’s got your knickers in a knot, Cap?”

Natasha glanced fleetingly at the commotion before returning to her stretches. “$100 says it’s Barnes.”

“I call foul,” Clint appealed, “she has insider information.”

“Wrong,” she sighed, stretching her arms behind her back and rolling her shoulders, “I have _eyes_ and a _brain_.”

Tony rubbed at his chin. “I’m a betting man,” he said, “but not even I’d chance a bet against her. So, Cap, what’d Barnes do? You wanna share with the rest of the class?”

He shouldered past Clint and Tony and ignored their huffs as he went to store his stuff in his locker. “No,” he said, dumping his gym bag with a _thud_ , “now who wants to spar first?”

Natasha snorted. “Nuh-uh,” she said, “not gonna happen, soldier. You need to warm up first. Save your angsty punching-bag routine for later.”

He scowled. “I don’t have an angsty punching-bag routine.”

Clint and Tony exchanged uncomfortable glances.

“What? I don’t.”

“Whatever you say, Captain Rogers, sir,” Tony murmured, giving him a salute and turning back to Clint, taking a defensive position against him.

They resumed sparring, the two of them barefooted and quick of breath as they swung and ducked and blocked and laughed. He watched them with a frown.

Natasha wandered over, dabbing gently at her face with a towel. “Instead of beating Stark half to death or busting another punching bag off the hook, you _could_ try talking about it. Call me crazy, but it’s an idea.”

He watched Tony try to tackle Clint only to stumble to the mat when Clint threw himself aside in a desperate dive.

“Cheat!” Tony cried, and Clint only laughed and caught him in a headlock. “Cheater!” he croaked.

“Steve,” she tried again. She stood directly in front of him and stared up at his face, daring him to meet her eye. “Tell me what happened.” She paused. “What did he do?”

His nose scrunched and his brows creased at the implication of her words. “He didn’t do anything wrong,” he said bitterly, “he just – it’s instinct.”

Her eyes checked over his face, darting this way and that. “He hurt you?”

“What? No!”

Natasha’s expression settled decisively. “But he did something that made you realise he could hurt someone.”

He hadn’t considered that until the words passed Natasha’s lips, but there it was – the cold truth of it all: Bucky was equipped to cause hurt. He’d been honed into a weapon, pressured and pushed and put through the flames until he was the Asset, he was the Winter Soldier, he was the fist of HYDRA. That didn’t go away overnight.

He sighed heavily. “You’re worryingly perceptive.”

“Not really,” she muttered, “I just have some experience in this area.” She tucked her sweat dampened hair behind her ears and threw her towel over her shoulder. “I wasn’t always the law abiding citizen you see before you today,” she reminded him. “I’ve seen things like this before.”

“I somehow doubt you’ve seen anything quite like this. How many other ninety year old amnesiac assassins have you met?”

“I don’t know about ninety year olds,” she said drolly, “but I knew more ‘ _amnesiac_ _assassins’_ than you’d think. Brainwashing is kind of a big thing in the industry, it keeps people… compliant. And maybe it’s not usually as severe as this, or as – extensive. But it happens.” She shrugged a slight shoulder.

He took a breath. “For a moment I thought he was getting better,” he realised aloud. “He was talking about the old days, he was joking, he didn’t flinch and tense up all the time—”

“Let me guess,” Natasha interrupted, “something happened and suddenly he reacted like the Winter Soldier.”

He grimaced. “Sam came over unannounced and he got – defensive.”

She nodded slowly and surely. “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but I think his reaction was normal. I’d be suspicious if he hadn’t behaved that way.”

“I just don’t understand, before that he’d been so normal and so much like—”

“So much like Bucky?” she guessed.

“ _Yes_.”

“Steve,” she tried, “he’s not Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – he’s not Bucky one minute and the Winter Soldier the next. He’s not Bruce – he doesn’t have a split personality, there’s no Hulk that takes over. It’s always the _same person_ for him _._ It’s always Bucky.”

“You can’t believe that. He spent years being tortured, being brainwashed, being told he was someone he wasn’t—”

“I know,” she agreed heatedly, “and that was awful and terrible and completely inhumane and inexcusable, but it happened to him, Steve, and it altered who he was and it changed his life entirely, and that’s something he’ll always have on his conscience.”

He stiffened. “You say that like it’s his fault,” he hissed. “ _On his conscience_ – what does that mean? Do you think he deserves to remember these things and feel guilt—?”

“Steve,” she beseeched him, “he did those things. He did them as the Winter Soldier, and the Winter Soldier is Bucky Barnes, and he now has to live with the memory of what he’s done and all the guilt that comes with it.” She searched his face desperately as she looked for some understanding. “There isn’t a line between who he was and what he’s become – it’s all one man. His experiences have changed who he is.”

He clenched his teeth together and wished he’d never opened his mouth. “He didn’t know what he was doing,” he maintained. “He was forced.”

“Yes, he was forced,” she said, “but it doesn’t change the fact that he did those things and he’ll always remember and feel guilty about it.” Her eyes sharpened. “Trust me,” she muttered, “I know.”

He took deep breaths and thought over what he’d just been told. Natasha had a point. The things Bucky had done as the Winter Soldier weren’t his fault, but he now had to live with the memories and the scars those acts had left him with. He wondered if that was why he kept his arm hidden – to help lessen the reminders of what he’d done.

Natasha was watching him with patient concern, her head cocked and her eyes bright. There were blotchy spots of colour on her face from the fervour with which she’d spoken – _Trust me, I know_.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked once he was sure he could speak.

“There’s not much you can do but be there for him,” she advised. “Make sure he knows you’re there for him no matter what he’s done.” She turned and watched as Clint flipped Tony on the mat. “Make sure he knows he has you.”

“He has me,” he said. He was Bucky’s to the core.

She smirked. “Tell Barnes that, dumbass. Now c’mon, are you gonna hurry up and do your stretches or am I going to have to find someone else to beat into a pulp?”


	3. Chapter 3

There were things in life that Steve was somehow naturally gifted at, even before the serum blazed his imperfections. He’d always had a knack for art, and he could read faster than most. He’d tied his laces before even Bucky had managed it, and he was a fair shot at darts.

There were things that Steve was good at, but gardening was apparently not one of them. His vegetables were dying.

“Damn it,” he sighed, kneeling in the damp earth and nursing a wilting sprout. He prodded at the vegetable bed, hoping he’d somehow understand the riddle that he’d been presented with if he could only see it clearly.

He was halfway decided on going inside and calling Bruce to see if he had any advice when he heard the click of the backyard gate unlocking. He stilled, his hands still rough with dirt, and listened with pricked ears as near-silent footsteps grew closer.

“I rang the doorbell a half dozen times,” Bucky said, his voice downcast, embarrassed. “Sorry for letting myself in.”

Steve let out a long, aching breath that seemed to come from the marrow of his bones. “It’s alright,” he said, craning his neck to look back at him, just making sure he was still real.

Bucky looked neater than Steve had seen him since before the war. He gave off the impression of someone who had spent a good long time in the shower and had finally decided to do a load of washing.

Bucky noticed Steve’s gaze and fidgeted as he stood, his eyes flickering from one thing to the next, scanning the area over and over, always on guard.

Steve ran his tongue over his dry lips. “My tomatoes are dying,” he announced solemnly.

The stiffness fell from Bucky’s shoulders and he folded himself down beside Steve on the ground, pushing his hair out of his face and saying, “I told you they were a mess.”

Steve could feel the warmth of him against his side.

“It’s an easy fix, though,” Bucky continued, “pass me one of the garden stakes, will you?”

Steve did as he was asked, lost in a daze.

“Some of these,” Bucky began, taking a thin stake and setting it with one of the taller sprouts, “are too big to hold their own weight, see? They need some support.” He struggled a little to secure the sprout properly, his fingers too uncoordinated. “Hold it for a second, will you?”

Steve quickly replaced Bucky’s hands with his own. He watched, his breath caught in his teeth, as Bucky tugged the leather glove from his left hand and tossed it aside. It was the first time he’d bared his hand since he’d beaten Steve with it on the hellicarrier.

Their fingers brushed as Bucky took Steve’s place again.

“Okay,” he sighed as he wound things together, his fingers now glistening in the sun, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Steve went inside to make coffee while Bucky worked his way through the vegetable patch making support structures and watering the seedlings that Steve had apparently “abused”. Occasionally he brushed his hair out of his face, or he used the back of his hand to scratch his forehead. Steve watched him from the window with molten warmth bubbling in his chest.

By the time Bucky came inside Steve had only just poured out their coffee. He’d been distracted.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come yesterday,” Bucky told him without preamble. He stood in the middle of Steve’s kitchen, dirt on his skin and the warmth from the sun still emanating from him. “It was stupid, of me. I panicked.”

“It’s okay,” he told him, but Bucky shook his head and cut him short.

“I almost attacked your friend. I pulled a knife on him.”

Steve sipped at his coffee and felt it ripple down his throat, hot and sharp. “I’m not saying that it was okay,” he said, “but you were only acting on instinct.” He took a seat and gestured for Bucky to join him. “Sam understood.”

Bucky’s fingers – flesh and shining silver – curled around his cup as he sat opposite him. “I didn’t mean to,” he muttered, “I didn’t even make the conscious decision to draw the blade. I heard someone enter and I knew it wasn’t you and I just—” He gaped at Steve, striking lines of fear in the shadows of his face. “I could do the same to you. I could hurt you.” He was stricken.

Steve felt his heart kick at his ribcage, both in pity and in pain. “You might,” he allowed, and before Bucky could look too crestfallen he quickly added, “but I can look after myself. I can look after you, too, if you’d let me.”

Bucky snorted and shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” There was dirt on his wrist. “If you knew half the things I’ve done you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.”

Steve had read Bucky’s file – had read it three times in a night and then locked it away, had considered burning it, considered tearing it to pieces – and he knew what had been done to him and what he’d been made to do. He’d read the casualty count and he’d flipped through the Polaroids, the thick squares worn with age and creased from the years spent pressed under paperclips and between the pages of abuse upon abuse upon abuse. He’d seen the bodies. He knew what Bucky had done just as well as he knew that Bucky would hate for him to know it.

“You’ve been a victim,” he managed, carefully weighing his every word before allowing it voice, “and you were forced to do things against your will—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bucky said in a high voice, “I still killed people, Steve.” His hands were splayed against the table, his palms open to the heavens, pleading, surrendering. “I did terrible, ungodly things, and I did it all without any thought – any hesitation. Almost seventy years of it.” His voice didn’t waver, but his hands trembled.

Steve slowly brought his hand across the table until he could hook his fingers through Bucky’s shining own. They both looked down at the sight, Bucky apparently too shocked to do anything but watch as Steve gripped their fingers together, flesh and silver.

“Terrible things have happened,” Steve muttered, “but things are different now.”

Bucky didn’t seem to have heard him. “How can you stand to touch it?” he asked disjointedly.

“Your hand?”

“Don’t you hate it?”

“Why would I?”

“Because it’s unnatural. Because I’ve killed people with it. I used it to hurt you.”

Steve quirked an eyebrow. “Yeah,” he said, “sure, and my body is God given and I’ve never hurt a fly. Totally natural.”

Bucky sighed, but there was a tug at the corner of his down-set mouth.

Steve held his fingers tighter. “I don’t hate your arm. It’s a part of you.”

He blanched, his eyes wide. “No it isn’t.”

Steve winced – he’d stepped on a landmine, there – and he reached out further until he could slide their palms together and press them tightly as one. Bucky’s hand was cold, but it lit shivers across Steve’s skin just to touch it. His skin prickled into raise bumps that ran to the back of his neck.

“Maybe it wasn’t always a part of you,” he allowed, “but it is now,” he said. “There’s not a part of you I don’t love, Buck.”

Bucky made a soft sound that was half lost in his throat. Steve looked at their hands and felt heat pooling in his face.

Bucky’s fingers were shifting cool and smooth against the thin skin of Steve’s hand. “If I hurt you,” he said, “I’d never be able to forgive myself.” He looked so young underneath the scruff he’d let overgrow his face – young and scared and so devastating to behold.

“I know,” he told him, “me too.”

As though he’d been choking on it, desperate to cough it up, Bucky croaked, “I don’t know if I can be what you want.” He didn’t meet Steve’s eyes.

Steve’s chest ached. “I want whatever you’ll give me. I want you just how you are.”

“Neurotic and dangerous and crazy?”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Steve said around a smirk. “You’re all that and more.”

Bucky laughed and the sound shocked them both. It seemed to erase all that had come before it, and left them sitting in the kitchen, the sun burning through the window, their hands entwined.

“God,” Bucky murmured, “we’re so far from home.”

“Move in with me,” Steve suggested before he could second-guess himself. “Home’s always been with you.”

He watched the shutters draw across Bucky’s face, starting with his smile and ending at his eyes. “Steve,” he tried, “it’s not that simple, no matter how much you want it to be. There’s stuff I still need to sort through—”

“I know, I know,” he said, because he _did,_ “but I want you here, Buck. I don’t even know where you’re staying. Whenever you leave I worry you’ll never come back, if it’s the last time I’ll ever—”

“I’m staying at a HYDRA safe house,” he said absently as he drew his thumb across the back of Steve’s hand, drawing his breath from his lips in a soft gust. “It’s empty right now, but when people come I take care of things.”

He felt sick. “Buck, no,” he said, “I don’t want you to have to kill people anymore.”

“I want that as well but it’s just—”

“Then live with me,” he persisted, aware that he was panicking, that he was insisting when he oughtn’t to. “I have the guest room. I want you here.”

He levelled Steve with a dry look. “You don’t have to do this, Steve. I’m no stray kitten, no matter what you think.”

He clutched his hand firmly and leaned into the table, leaned into the way Bucky watched him. His face hung inches away. “I bought this house so I could turn it into a home,” he told him earnestly, pushing everything he felt into his voice so that Bucky would just _understand_. “I wanted you to have a home to come back to.”

He’d meant what he’d said, anyway. Home had always been with Bucky. Even in dark foxholes at war he’d found his home beside him.

“You’re an idiot,” Bucky muttered, eyes rising and falling from their hands to Steve’s face. “Who – what kind of _idiot_ invites someone like me to live with them?”

“In this economy having a housemate is the smart thing to do,” he told him astutely.

“The guest room isn’t even finished.”

“We can finish it.”

“You don’t have a spare _bed_.”

He shrugged. “I’ll buy one.”

“In _this_ economy?”

Steve laughed. The coils of heat from their coffee had disappeared, but he felt warm all over.

“So,” he said after a moment, “is that a yes?”

“It’s a maybe.”

It was enough.

 

~*~

 

“What do you think?” he asked, hands on his hips as he gazed up at the selection of light fittings.

“Broad selection,” Bucky replied. “Some of ‘em look a little – fiddly.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed, looking now at Randall, “I don’t really want something fiddly.” He gestured at one of the expensive fixtures that had strange angular shapes coming down from it, as well as odd strings and levers that looked like they belonged on a wind-chime or a cuckoo clock. “I just want a light fixture that does its job.”

Randall looked between the two of them with trepidation. “We have some simple fixtures just over here, if that’s what you’re after.”

They followed Randall to the next aisle, letting him chatter about energy efficient light bulbs and the latest advances in light fixture technology. Bucky looked less than impressed.

“You sure about this guy?” he groused in a lowered voice, eyeing Randall sceptically. “He just tried to sell you a chandelier for the bathroom.”

Steve laughed and bumped his shoulder to Bucky’s. “Shut up.”

“I’m seriously doubt his skill as a handyman, Steve. Look at his apron – totally spotless. He’s never done a day of work in his life.”

“It’s his _uniform_ , Buck. _Christ._ ”

 

~*~

 

It took him a while to ask.

“What happened to you?”

Steve looked up from the instruction manual for the bed frame with his eyebrows in a knot. “Huh?”

Bucky’s head was cocked to the side. “After I fell,” he clarified, glancing at Steve, “what happened to you?”

Steve had somehow assumed he’d known. Everyone knew his story – there was the Smithsonian exhibition on him, after all, and he knew from Tony’s surveillance that Bucky had been there before he left for Russia. Steve’s personal history was American history now, although it made him uncomfortable to think it.

“I crashed a plane,” he admitted with a shrug. “Took it into the ocean.”

Bucky made no sign that he had heard.

“It was either that or risk—”

“You _crashed a plane?_ ” The furious disbelief sent Bucky’s eyebrows to his hair line. “On _purpose?_ ”

He winced. “It – it made sense at the time.”

“God, you’re one stupid son of a bitch.” He snatched the instruction manual from Steve’s hands and turned his angry scowl to it instead. He stared at it for a second before adding, “You could’ve _died!_ ”

“But I didn’t! Not really!”

“But you coulda!”

He stared bewilderedly at his best friend. “Are you seriously gonna nag at me about something I did seventy years ago?”

“Damn straight I am, and you’re gonna listen to my every word! I can’t believe it – crashing a plane on purpose – nearly _dyin’_ – and into the _ocean?_ What if they hadn’t found you? By God, Rogers, you have a death wish.”

He groaned and pretend to bludgeon himself with one of the bed legs.

 

~*~

 

They went looking at mattresses together.

Bucky turned one of the price tags over in his hands and whistled, his eyebrows raised. “Jeez.”

Steve was lying on the display bed under the façade of testing the density of the mattress. He was also just having a break from the monotony of stalking the aisles of furniture stores.

“Things got expensive over the last seventy years, huh?” he said.

“They want a grand for a glorified cushion,” Bucky said, staring down at Steve with wide eyes.

“Don’t stress it,” he advised. “Come test it with me.” He patted the other side of the bed invitingly. “C’mon. Try before you buy.”

Bucky stood at the end of the bed with his arms folded over his chest, watching Steve with a look of weary fondness. He was in a new set of clothes today, old things of Steve’s – an old sweatshirt and a pair of pants he’d never even worn. His hair was clean and brushed, and even though he still had a thick growth of stubble over his cheeks, he looked spotless and bright.

“Come on,” he urged again.

Bucky sighed and relinquished. “You’re a goddamn child,” he said, coming to lie beside him. The mattress dipped a little with his weight and Steve felt their sides brush.

They were quiet then, the two of them lying side-by-side on the king sized bed. Steve could hear Bucky’s quiet breathing, could feel every time he shifted or moved. He didn’t know if it was because of the mattress – maybe it carried movement too easily – or if it was because he was so painfully attuned to Bucky’s every move.

Bucky yawned. “$1500 for a mattress, that’s blasphemy.”

Steve turned to face him, smiling as he did. Bucky’s eyes were shut and his arms were folded petulantly over his chest.

“Wake me up when mattresses are cheaper,” he grumbled, his eyes still closed.

Bucky had a few freckles on his face, the kind that were barely there unless searched for. They were like pale pinpricks across the skin of his cheekbones, the skin near his eyes, his temples.

Growing up Bucky had always been the handsomest of the pair of them, everyone had said as much, but it had never bothered Steve. He’d admired him for it, and had looked up at him with wonder and awe, curious as to how he did it – how he managed to look that way when Steve just barely managed to look like anything at all.

The girls had always called him a pretty boy and Bucky had always smirked at them, assured them he was _more than that, sweetheart_ , and Steve had watched and _wondered_. He’d seen the way they blushed and laughed when he looked their way, and then Bucky would smile at _him_ , would offer him his hand, would pull him from a fight and into laughter, would chase him through Brooklyn, would run with him, would sit on the end of his bed and make him soup when he was sick.

Steve stopped. He wet his lips and swallowed around the lump in his throat and he steadfastly ignored the knot in his stomach.

He forced himself to get up. “C’mon,” he said, starting for the next aisle of beds, “there are still four more aisles of these to fall asleep on.”

Bucky groaned but followed after him, oblivious to the way Steve’s insides were burning.

 

~*~

 

“So,” Steve said at lunch, “Bucky’s moving in with me.”

Clint dropped his fork with a _clatter_.

Tony sat his cutlery down, his lasagne forgotten. “He’s gonna stay in the, uh… the guest room?”

He nodded. “We fixed the whole room up, got a bed and everything, a chest of drawers… He’s moving in tomorrow.”

A look of strange relief – or _disappointment?_ – gusted through the group. Sam looked sideways at Natasha who pointedly continued eating her salad without comment or indication that she’d so much as heard.

“What?” he asked with suspicion.

Clint forced himself to drink rather than answer.

Bruce raised his glass in Steve’s direction, smiling. “I think it’s good news,” he said. “Congratulations.”

Clint whispered something to Sam, who promptly choked on his burger and sent half-chewed lettuce flying across the table.

Steve narrowed his eyes, but then Natasha was talking about the Potomac and the search for his dropped shield and the conversation moved on.

 

~*~

 

Bucky made dinner, cooking vegetables and meat and mashing potatoes like he’d been doing it all of his life. His hair was tied back in a ponytail that made Steve’s mouth dry, and his sleeves were rolled to his elbows. He flittered around Steve’s kitchen – _their_ kitchen – like it had been made for him specially, like he knew its every corner and secret, like he’d lived there for years.

Steve hovered protectively nearby, desperate to help, but Bucky swatted him away at every turn.

“Let me do it,” he said time and time again when Steve offered to assist. “God, Rogers, you’ve let me move in and live with you, the least I can goddamn do is make you a meal every once in a while.”

So Steve let him. He sat at the table with his laptop and he read over the top news articles of the week, always keeping an eye open for anything on S.H.I.E.L.D. or HYDRA, and he continued his research on the things from his ever-growing list – _Oprah Winfrey (and Gayle?)_.Every now and again he paused to check that Bucky hadn’t set anything on fire yet.

“I’m not incompetent,” he grumbled when he caught Steve peering at him. “Who was it that kept you fed all those times you were laid up sick?”

“You did,” he sighed. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to properly thank him for that. “You always did.”

“Exactly, now just sit tight and quit making me nervous, alright? I’m not about to set the damn oven on fire.”

Bucky had been Steve’s official housemate for three days already. He’d arrived on the first day with two duffle bags to his name and an enormous military trunk that was securely padlocked shut.

“Arsenal,” he’d grunted by way of explanation, carrying it easily into his room and placing it gently at the foot of his bed. “Just in case,” he’d added, dusting his hands together and smiling at him sweetly.

Steve had been thinking about what Natasha had said as well as the things Bucky had told him personally. He understood that he’d been wrong in waiting for a switch to flip and for Bucky Barnes of 1943 to suddenly appear before him, both arms whole, no blood on his hands, his hair still cropped tight and his smile smooth and easy. Steve _understood_ now, and it hurt him to realise just how insensitive he’d been – just how short-sighted he was. Bucky was Bucky, just as Steve, for all his experiences, was still Steve.

Bucky’s hair was falling out of the ponytail – it was just a tad too short and uneven for it to tie back neatly – and Steve watched as he blew a strand out of his face with quirked lips. He stirred whatever was in the saucepan and propped a hand on his waist. He was in one of Steve’s older shirts, something he’d been given after the Battle of New York. He looked at home.

Steve felt the rise of a sharp throb of affection in his chest. It felt like a piece of wire piercing him and tugging his insides out of shape.

“I’m real glad I found you again,” he said.

Bucky looked at him with quiet surprise. Steve saw his throat tighten as he swallowed.

“Me too,” he said. “Real glad.” He smiled at him and Steve felt his chest grow tighter around the feeling that had steadily been consuming him for years.

True to his word, Bucky didn’t cause any fires, and the meal was the best Steve had had since he woke up, if only for the company he shared it with.

 

~*~

 

“No, fuck this, this is getting ridiculous,” Bucky erupted on a Sunday morning, dropping his shovel to the ground and ripping the elastic band from his hair as though it had personally insulted his mother. “Steve,” he said, flinging the hair elastic at the ground, “this hair is _bullshit_.”

Steve froze like a deer in headlights, his shovel still partially submerged in the dirt. They’d been digging up the front path before Bucky had gone into his hair-related meltdown.

“Uh.”

“It keeps getting in my eyes,” he explained irritably, raking it backwards with muddy fingers and leaving dark strokes of dirt on his cheeks. “It’s just – it’s impractical. It’s a hazard.”

“Cut it shorter,” he suggested. “I’ve got scissors.”

He turned and stormed for the house and Steve followed hot on his heels.

“You’re gonna have to do it, you know how I am,” Bucky said as he went into the bathroom. “Whenever I do it I end up looking like a shrub.”

Steve had been cutting Bucky’s hair for as long as he could remember. Bucky would sit on the edge of the bathtub and Steve would stretch on his toes behind him, peering over the top of his head as he delicately maintained the neatness of his hair. Not once had he made a mistake – or if he had, Bucky had never minded.

“I haven’t cut hair in seventy years,” he reminded him. “Keep that in mind.”

Bucky shook his head, tore the medicine cabinet open with enough force to nearly bend the hinges, and then he was shoving the scissors into Steve’s hands and throwing himself down to the edge of the tub.

It could almost have been the 40s again, the quiet years before the war. The differences were minimal enough – Bucky’s arm; Steve’s entire body; the new millennium.

Steve placed a hand on Bucky’s shoulder to balance himself and then stepped into the empty tub behind him. He looked down at his head and wet his lips, suddenly horrendously nervous.

“How short are we talking?” he asked. “Buck, we can afford a barber, y’know. It doesn’t have to be me anymore.”

“I like your haircuts,” he said simply. “I don’t want it _too_ short. Not like—” _Before_.

“How about in-between?” he suggested. “Longer than the 40s, but short enough that it doesn’t get in your eyes.”

“Don’t make me look like some unkempt hobo,” he whined. “Ma would kill me.”

“You’re doing a good enough job of that on your own, thanks. Look at your face, will you? I like the beard but you’re more handso—” He choked. “You’d look nicer without it.”

Bucky grumbled unintelligibly.

Steve took a breath. “Keep still,” he warned. “If I mess up because you’re fidgeting I’m not taking the blame.”

“Don’t mess up.” It sounded like both a plea and a threat.

He took the scissors and pinched a lock of hair between his fingers, then, with a hesitant glance at the back of Bucky’s head, he made the crisp snip.

“Oh, jeez,” Bucky groaned, “this was a mistake.”

“It’s fine, it’s gonna look smart,” he assured him, snipping again. Long strands fell and collected over his shoulders. “You want a towel or something to keep the hair from itching you?”

“Nah, I’ll just shower after this. I’m already filthy as it is.”

“You won’t hear me arguing that.”

Bucky snorted. “Lay off. You’re just as dirty.”

He cut methodically and carefully, thinning the hair until it no longer fell to his shoulders. It still had weight to it – curls and swirls and a thickness that Steve’s hair just never had managed – but it was shorter now and no longer able to fall into his eyes.

With each careful cut of the scissors it was as though he was a step closer to something half-forgotten, something that lingered in the depths of his memory and hinted at him like déjà vu. As he methodically thinned his hair the sharp line of Bucky’s jaw came into view, as well as the soft curve of his ears. His forehead appeared and then his temples followed. The nape of his neck was in full view – his pale skin perfectly unblemished and soft, a fine trail of hair leading to his head.

He left the bathtub to stand in front of him, gently fixing the hair around his face and making certain it was of equal length. As he worked he felt Bucky’s eyes on him, following him like magnets. They were incredibly close like this. Steve could feel the gentle shudder of Bucky’s breath as he leant in and brushed a lock of hair from his cheek to cut it to length. His heart throttled desperately in his chest and his hand trembled with the rush of it all.

When he was finally satisfied with his work he ran an open hand over Bucky’s head, brushing free the excess clippings and checking for any uneven lengths that had gone unnoticed to him. He felt the warmth of him under his palm and the soft, shining slip of his hair between his fingers. Bucky shifted to follow his touch.

“Done?” he asked. His voice was thick.

Steve swallowed and took a breath. “Look in the mirror and tell me if it’s alright. I can make it shorter if you want, or…”

Bucky swept the cuttings from his shoulder into the tub and stood, facing his reflection over the basin. His eyebrows lifted and he turned his head this way and that, running a hand through his hair and making a soft, contemplative sound that made Steve hopeful.

“Huh,” he said eventually. “Not bad. If you ever get sick of being Captain America you could always start again as a barber.” He grinned at him through the mirror and Steve knew that he was gone for.

 

~*~

 

It was nine in the morning when Steve and Sam returned from their run and found Bucky in the kitchen making eggs. He was in an oversized t-shirt (a promotional hand-out from a Stark function he’d been dragged to before he’d made the move to DC) and both of his arms were bared, which Steve always noted with a smile. He still looked sleep-ruffled and warm and Steve soaked in the sight of him, holding it in his lungs, in his ribs, in his chest.

“Hey, Barnes,” said Sam with a smile that was just a little too wide to be entirely genuine, “how’s things? Enjoying the new digs?”

Bucky offered him a smile in turn and shuffled a little on the spot, the cuffs of his sweatpants falling over his feet and revealing only his pale toes. “It’s a good house,” he said in a voice that was still raspy and half-asleep. “Steve’s a top guy for letting me stay here like this.”

“You make me eggs, so it all balances out,” he said as he reached around him to spear a piece of scrambled egg from the pan.

Bucky half-heartedly swatted at his hand and bumped his shoulder against his chest. “Ass,” he said fondly, shooting a quick grin at him. “Oh, there’s coffee in the pot if you want some.”

Steve clapped him on the shoulder as he passed him for the coffee machine. “Thanks,” he said, his fingers falling along the hard muscles of his back. “Sam, you want a coffee?”

He looked at Sam and caught him in what must have been a moment of deliberation. His forehead was wrinkled with confusion and the set of his mouth was quirked in thought; he appeared as though he’d suddenly been presented with an unknown riddle.

“Yeah,” he said as he reconstructed his expression into something neutral, “yeah, I’d love a coffee. Thanks, man.”

He filled Bucky’s cup without having to be asked and then gestured for Sam to follow him to the table to drink.

“Natasha messaged me last night,” he said, cradling his coffee in his hands and letting it warm him, “she said Thor’s back on Earth.”

Sam looked as though all his Christmases had come at once, and from the stovetop Bucky made a huff of sound.

“There’s gonna be a get together at Stark’s on the weekend,” he announced, looking back to where Bucky was, “and you’ve both been invited.”

“You know I’d ditch my own sister’s wedding for a chance to meet Thor,” Sam said eagerly. “That guy – he’s a God. He is _literally_ a God.”

Bucky came and sat with them, his plate laden with scrambled eggs and toast and his mug of coffee steaming in thin coils. For a moment Sam’s eyes lingered on the rippling plates of silver of his arm, but then the moment passed and his attention was elsewhere and Steve could breathe easily again.

He wondered if Bucky would go to the party with him, if only for a short while just to meet his friends. As much as he wanted him to, Steve knew that the likelihood was slim. Bucky had warmed up to Sam to the point where they could exchange pleasantries and even joke with each other a little, but tossing him head-first into a room of intoxicated Avengers was a different thing entirely.

“You mind?” he asked as he stole a piece of toast from Bucky’s plate.

“It ain’t hard to make toast, y’know,” he said around a mouthful of food. “You could make your own sometime.”

He took a bite, savouring the tang of marmalade against his tongue. “I know,” he said, “but yours tastes best.”

He smiled in a nostalgic kind of way, the corners of his eyes crinkling and his teeth left unseen. “Don’t matter,” he said eventually, “I made twice as much knowing you’d be a jackass, so go right ahead, eat all my toast.” He watched as Steve took a deliberate bite of the toast. His smile was tranquil, the way it always was in the morning when he was still warm and soft at the edges, barefoot in the kitchen with Steve’s old things running gently over his skin.

When Steve turned his attention back to Sam he was met with a look of utter bewilderment.

“What?”

Sam only shook his head and drank deeply from his coffee.

 

~*~

 

Steve was in the backyard watering the vegetable garden when Bucky came out with his face freshly shaved. For a moment he lost track of time – what year was it? 1943? 2014? – before things slowly came back into view: Bucky’s arm glinting in the light; his tight grey t-shirt and his slim-fitting jeans; the faint scars that stood out against his pale skin; the length of his wavy hair.

He noticed Steve’s reaction.

“Better?” he asked, rubbing at his face and shifting his weight uncomfortably. “I cut myself a couple times but it’s—”

“You look amazing,” he breathed. He swallowed thickly and tried again. “You look like a new man.”

Bucky beamed at him and just like that

– like _nothing –_

he opened the floodgates to a lifetime of _want_.

Steve imagined dropping the hose and letting the water pool in the soil. He imagined crossing the yard in three strides and mounting the steps in one. He’d curl a hand against Bucky’s jaw, lose another in his hair, and then he’d press their mouths together and kiss him hard against the doorframe. He’d draw the warmth from his lips and he’d capture the taste of him. He’d fall into him in the way he’d always wanted to.

For a moment the blood pumped deafeningly in his ears and he was lost to the furious chant of his thoughts.

_Do it, do it, do it, do it, kiss him, how long have you wanted this, you love him, do it, god, he’s_ everything _—_

“You’re gonna drown those tomatoes,” Bucky said, watching the hose flow heavily down on the garden. He turned and went back inside.

Steve stood in the silent backyard, the sun beating down on him and his chest falling back and forth. He blinked, wet his lips, and let out a quiet, “Fuck.”


End file.
